Khan vs. Barrera: Glass Chin vs. Faded Skills

By Jim Dower: Amir Khan is looking to erase the sting of defeat from his stoppage loss to Breidis Prescott by fighting Marco Antonio Barrera on March 14th. If Khan can win, he may partially rehabilitate his name with some fans and make a big step forward in the lightweight division. Certainly, Khan’s last fight, a 2nd round TKO over little known Oisin Fagan in December, did little to ease the pain of his 1st round loss to Prescott.

In choosing Barrera as his next opponent, Khan is taking another big risk with his career. Barrera may be an old 34 and not a legitimate lightweight, but he still has much of his offensive skills still intact. That alone gives him a good chance at beating Khan, who was staggered by jab thrown by Prescott in their fight in September 2008.

Khan has been hurt by other light-hitting opponents since turning professional, and was also hurt in the 2004 Olympics, causing him to have to settle for a Silver Medal. Barrera may have lost much of his speed and movement in the past five years, but he can probably still punch better than fighters like Willie Limond and Michael Gomez, both of which had Khan down on the canvas.

Khan needs to try and relax, focus on boxing from the outside using his speed advantage to beat Barrera. Above all, Khan needs to avoid mixing it up with Barrera because, as we’ve seen already, Khan can be hurt with even punches that are truly power shots. Barrera can still punch hard enough to put Khan on his seat, and with the serious knockout that Khan suffered against Prescott, you never know if there’s any lingering damage from the knockout.

There’s little question that Barrera will be able to take Khan’s biggest shots, because Barrera has been in with the best – Manny Pacquiao, Erik Morales and Naseem Hamed – and took their punches without visiting the canvas. Khan, however, will still test him and try for a knockout if things look good early on.

That’s where a problem lies for Khan, because he seems to get overconfident when he’s in control of a fight, letting his hands go as if the fight was a brawl instead of a boxing match. It’s mostly worked for him because up until the Prescott fight, Khan had been matched against soft opponents without the skills to really test him.

And as shot as Barrera would seem to be, he might be too big of a jump up in competition for Khan. Barrera is a much more polished fighter than Amir, and regardless that Marco has lost a lot of his skills, he still has a strong foundation to fall back on.

Khan doesn’t have that strong foundation and depends solely on his speed and power to get him through his fights. In the end, Khan’s chin will be the telling factor in the fight. If he can take Barrera’s shots, then he’ll probably win, but if not, then he’ll be taken out brutally like he was against Prescott. Either way, I don’t see the fight going beyond the 6th round.

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