Does Khan’s Stock Go Up If He Beats Barrera?

By Sean McDaniel: Whether lightweight Amir Khan (19-1, 15 KOs) realizes it or not, he probably stands more to lose if things go wrong for him on Saturday night against Marco Antonio Barrera (65-6, 43 KOs). After all, Khan is 22, at the start of his career and still is hoping to make a name for himself in the professional boxing world. In the case of Barrera, he has already made his fortune, won numerous titles as a featherweight and super featherweight and is at the end of his career.

If Khan beats him, Amir may undo a lot of the damage from his 1st round TKO loss to Breidis Prescott on September 6th, 2008. The loss, an unexpected one, has had the effect of grinding Khan’s career to a standstill. The only way that Khan can get past that loss is to beat someone with a big name. Hence, this is where Barrera comes in.

However, for some fans, Khan won’t get much credit regardless of how easily he defeats Barrera. The reason for this is because Barrera hasn’t looked like the same fighter he was earlier in his career in his last four or five bouts, is visibly slower and has recently moved up in weight to the lightweight division.

Thus far, Barrera hasn’t impressed in his two prior fights in the lightweight division against marginal competition. This would seem to put the advantage in Khan’s favor, because up until his loss against Prescott, Khan had looked nearly magnificent in dispatching his first 18 foes – if you can ignore his knockdowns against Michael Gomez, Willie Limond and Rachid Drilzane, that is.

So win or lose, Khan will get a lot of credit from some people, most likely fans from the UK who are naturally predisposed to like him, but for other people around the world, Khan might not be seen as anything but a hyped up former Olympian who decided to take the easy path by fighting an aging, some say over the hill, undersized former star in Barrera.

For them, they’ll never be satisfied until Khan steps back in the ring and avenges his defeat to Prescott, and then perhaps beats another top lightweight like Edwin Valero, Juan Diaz, Juan Manuel Marquez or Ali Funeka.

Right now, I’d settle for Prescott. He’d do a lot more for getting Khan back to restoring his credibility than a fight against Barrera. Yeah, that might please his fans in one part of the world, but what use is it if most of the other parts of the world don’t recognize it? Does Khan want only to be a regional fighter? If so, then why not go after Erik Morales next?

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