By Scott Gilfoid: Still licking his wounds from his 1st round destruction by Breidis Prescott in September, Amir Khan (19-1, 15 KOs) got back on the winning tract with a 2nd round stoppage over Oisin Fagan (22-6, 13 KOs) on Saturday night to win the vacant World Boxing Association (WBA) International lightweight title at the ExCel Arena, Dockland, in London.
Khan, 22, dropped Fagan twice in the 1st round and then was beating him unmercifully in the 2nd when Fagan’s corner threw in the towel. However, Khan didn’t see the towel thrown into the ring and still landed several hard shots against a near defenseless Fagan as the Irish fighter stood covering up on the ropes.
Referee Mikey Vann stepped in and halted the fight at 1:37 of the round. Khan, a former Silver medal winner in the 2004 Olympics, showed good hand speed as always and rained almost nonstop punches to the head of a badly over-matched Fagan during the fight.
However, Khan showed the same tendency to slug as he did in his fight with Prescott and was nailed often with looping right hands from Fagan in the first round. Though after the fight Khan said that his defense had improved, as far as I can tell, he looked as bad as he did in his fight with Prescott. The difference here was that Fagan had none of the power that Prescott, Michael Gomez or Willie Limond had, and hence was unable to put Khan in any kind of trouble in the fight.
If you could get past Khan’s typically poor defense and focus on his offensive skills, he looked sensational against Fagan in the first round, hitting him often with uppercuts, fast combinations and hard right hands. Khan moved constantly and appeared to be trying to prevent from getting hit. However, Fagan easily cut off the ring on Khan and was able to land right hands about anytime he tried to.
As the round was nearing the end, Khan put Fagan down with a hard right hand to the head near the ropes. Fagan staggered to his feet and continued fighting. Seconds later, Khan put him down against with a left-right combination.
After getting up, Fagan slipped to the canvas after Khan slightly pulled him forward after landing a hard shot. However, the referee didn’t rule it a knockdown. Khan finished the round with a flurry of shots, causing Fagan to stagger backwards at the bell.
At this stage, Khan was fighting as he normally does, throwing flurries, not concentrating on his defense, missing with many of his wild shots and leaving himself open for counter shots from Fagan. Fortunately for him, Fagan didn’t have the presence of mind to throw a punch, because he might have been able to put Khan down if he could have connected with a shot to his jaw.
In the 2nd round, it was all Khan now, throwing hard shots, and having little trouble landing against a near defenseless Fagan. Finally, after hitting Fagan with some especially hard punches, causing his nose to bleed, Khan staggered him with a three punch combination that drove him to the ropes. At that point, Fagan’s corner threw in the towel.
After the fight, Khan said “My defense is getting better. I know how good I am. I know the mistake I made last time. I am not going to make the same mistake this time. A fight against Prescott would be a great fight in the future.”
I personally hope that Khan doesn’t consider fighting Prescott any time soon, because if Khan had fought the way he did against Fagan on Saturday night with Prescott, this would have likely been another 1st round knockout loss for Khan. As far as I can tell, I see no improvement with Khan. The only difference is that he fought a C-class fighter that he was able to look good against.
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