By Dan Ambrose: Previously undefeated Amir Khan (18-1, 14 KOs) comes into this Saturday’s fight with a lot of pressure on him for his battle against Oisin Fagan (22-5, 13 KOs) at the ExCel Arena, Dockland, in London. Khan has replaced his trainer Jorge Rubio and added American trainer Freddie Roach in his place. It’s difficult to say whether Roach, a trainer known mainly for specializing in teaching sound offensive skills rather than defensive, will have much effect on Khan’s still developing boxing skill.
However, one thing that’s come of it has been Khan having the ability to train with Roach’s star pupil, Manny Pacquiao. So far, Khan has sparred a lot with Pacquiao while the Filipino star trains for his bout this Saturday against Oscar De La Hoya.
In the end, Khan may not need sparring with someone as good as Pacquiao in order to be the likes of Fagan, because he appears to be big step down from the fighters that Khan has been mixing it up with in the past year. Known for his heavy pressure and brawling style of fighting, Fagan has little in the way of hand speed and appears to have very average power.
Although he has a decent percentage of knockouts on his record, but unfortunately for him, most of those knockouts have come against fighters with losing records with few fights under their belt. Of what I’ve seen of him, Fagan looks to be weak puncher, and without any kind of hand speed.
If Khan’s idea is to use Pacquiao to mimic the type of fighter he’ll be getting in the ring with on Saturday, then I’ve got to say that he’s wasting his time by doing that, for Pacquiao is like a fastball pitcher whereas Fagan is like a knuckleball pitcher with little speed.
Hopefully, Khan sparring with someone as fast as Pacquiao doesn’t mess him up for this fight, because more than anything else, Khan can’t afford to lose or look bad. He needs a big win, something on the lines of a 1st or 2nd round knockout.
Looking at a couple of Fagan’s fights, that’s not beyond the realm of possibilities, because he looks very average to me and not in the class of many of Khan’s prior knockout victims like Graham Earl, Martin Kristjansen and Michael Gomez, to name just a few.
However, Khan’s confidence will probably be low going into this fight, given his 1st round TKO loss to Breidis Prescott in September. That was a surprise loss for Khan, who many felt that he would be able to take care of Prescott without too many problems.
Before the fight, Prescott wasn’t considered to be a top fighter, yet he made Khan look bad. What Prescott did have is power and a lot of it, which in the end was all he needed to take Khan out. Fagan likes to put a lot of pressure on his opponents, and because he’s fighting Khan and almost guaranteed to be fighting in front of a huge audience, Fagan will be fighting very hard and trying to take advantage of Khan’s weak chin.
And believe me, another knockout loss for Khan right now would just about finish him as a fighter. Of course, he could come back from that but his future would be seriously dimmed with another knockout, especially one at the hands of someone like Fagan, who is in no way comparable to the power that Khan will be meeting when he starts fighting 1st tier fighters at some point in the future.
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:13 am
Problem with Khan Is that he needs to be learning how to be slick, not a brawler, he’s not facing the real Pac man either, he’s got potential but he needs to learn fast now, as he is 21 and you need to by now demonstrate that you got skills not jus flashing hand speeds. He should fight tall fighters’ as well not just short because Prescott was very tall and I reckon that what made Khan loose. Last but not least Khan loves the camera to much, he’s always talking to the cameras and he’s always makes silly claims like him being world champ, he needs stop all that stop being a celebrity and stop making TV appearance and not tell what people what he want to do and how good he is instead the boxing fans tell him. He need to put his head down and really go for it, otherwise as most likely which is going to happen is that he going to fall and become another Harrison
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:32 am
khan is only 21 and his body hasnt even devoloped fully yet as a boxer, he will most definetely be a world champion in the next 2 years, he just needs to get some good wins against some good chalengers. i doubt his career will be over if he loses on saturday, look at paqioua he was knocked out twice in his earlier career and now he is p4p no1.
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:05 pm
What a load of cobblers i bet the last guys name is jimmy khan what you talking about mate pacquiao has campaigned at the highest level against well respected fighters when he has come unstuck as for khan i said the moment he went pro it was only a matter of time before he comes unstuck and funny enough exactly this way in getting bashed up badly and running around the ring like a drunk you can train all day with any trainer but you cannot put muscles on chins end of wake up the guy was hurt against british class and far from world class fighters lets no forget that in likes of gomez earl etc they will wrap him in cotton wool for few fights against hand picked fighters who have no power or speed and then when he has to step up again will be found wanting as before wake up and study some of his fights you may learn something there all over for him as with haye the same way once he goes in with a real hungry heavyweight can list around ten who will eat him up ask a 40 something year old average british cruiserweight called carl thompson who had haye all over the ring 2004 rest my case get some real boxing fans who actually study the game with a little bit of sense for once.
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
cris
pacquiao got knocked out twice in his first 15 or so fights against nobodys or at least no one ive heard of and hasn’t been knocked out since, cus he learnt from it and learned fast!!
khan has potential and thats it, no more no less, doubt very much he will get anywere near what pacquiao has done but i still say give him a chance to show he can improve and overcome his current deficiencies as a fighter…i think if he can improve his defence and use a bit more intelligence(if he has it) in the ring he could still be a world champion at light weight.
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:42 am
Questions were raised about Khans chin against Wilie Limond. Then again in a later fight, I tihnk it was the Gomez fight.
Then against Prescott, a good puncher, he was hurt with a couple of average shots and finished off by a very good shot. But this was in the 1st round of a fight and hes a young lad. His chin is far to poor.
No doubt he will blow the Irish lad away but what happens when he faces some 1 with a punchers chance? And hes guna have to if he wants to progress.
Theres havin a poor chin and having Khans chin.Ive never seen a boxer with a worse chin.
Im a big fan of his but the problems are there for all to see, and any 1 he faces will know this now too.
It seems in Khans fights its guna be a case of getting his opponants out of there before they hit him which you can only do at the level hes at now.
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Did i read that right ?
“”Previously undefeated Amir Khan (18-1, 14 KOs)”"
The journalism & research on this site has a lot to answer for recently.