Does Khan Lack the Toughness to Beat Kotelnik?
June 4th, 2009
By Matt Stein: Amir Khan (20-1, 15 KO’s) has all these grand plans about wanting to fight Ricky Hatton or one of the other big named in boxing, but I’m really wondering whether Khan will be able to get by WBA light welterweight champion Andriy Kotelnik (31-2-1, 13 KO’s) later on this month on June 27th at the O2 Arena in London.
Khan thus far has been matched up against fighters he’s been able to roll over for the most part with the exception of Breidis Prescott. Kotelnik won’t be blown away with a few flurries by Khan like Amir’s other opponents. Kotelnik is going to keep firing back at Khan with jabs, hard right hands and left hooks.
I just don’t see Khan as having the mental or physical toughness to beat a fighter as persistent and as strong as Kotelnik. Khan, 22, is coming into this fight with a 5th round technical decision over Marco Antonio Barrera in March. Believe it or not, that was Khan’s second toughest opponent of his career.
I don’t doubt Barrera’s skills but he was moving up in weight and dealing with age in his fight with Amir. And the fight didn’t even get to go the full distance because of the cut that occurred on the forehead of Barrera. Khan got nothing out of the fight other than a handful of rounds against an opponent with only partial vision.
Khan’s punches had no effect on Barrera. After the fight, Barrera said that Khan doesn’t hit hard. Barrera might have just been saying this but he is usually someone that tells it like it is. Khan’s power has been rated good, yet most of his knockouts have come against tomato cans in England.
Khan probably won’t be knocking Kotelnik and without a knockout occurring or a cut from his opponent, Khan will be getting hit a lot in the fight. Khan will be moving a lot, trying to stay away and using his jab to control the fight.
However, Khan prefers to throw fast combinations and he won’t be able resist trying to throw flurries to impress the crowd. This is where Khan will find himself getting hit repeatedly by Kotelnik, who has a lancing jab that he likes to throw at his opponents.
Kotelnik has been in with a lot of tough fighters in previous bouts against Junior Witter, Marcos Maidana, Gavin Rees, Souleymane M’baye, William Gonzalez, and Mohamed Abdulev, beating most of them and only losing by questionable decisions to Witter and M’baye.
Khan may think that he’s found an opponent that he can beat in the 31-year-old Kotelnik, but I think Khan has badly misjudged Kotelnik’s talent. He’s as good if not better than Witter, and I don’t consider Khan being in the same league as a skilled fighter like Witter. I think Khan has made a big miscalculation in moving up in weight to fight Kotelnik.
I see Khan getting badly beaten up by Kotelnik and either losing by a bloody 12 round decision or getting caught by a hard shot from Kotelnik and taken out in the 8th or 9th. Kotelnik will take Khan deep in the fight and take advantage of Khan’s questionable stamina to knock him out.
Tags: 13 Responses to “Does Khan Lack the Toughness to Beat Kotelnik?”
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kotelnik has said khan doesnt belong in the ring with him, which is true. how exactly did he earn a shot at a world title? and to think people were slagging david haye off for fast tracking after moving up a weight. at least david haye was an undisputed world champ at the previouse weight.
kotelnik says if he lands early it’ll be a faster ko than breidis prescotts.. good luck amir, for once your not fighting and old man or a bum so you’ll need all the luck you can get.
Khan p4p? hall of fame? what a load of bunk hes got a chin like china and you know hes guna go if he gets 1 flush on it hes fought mostly uncle toms and is prob the most overated overhyped boxer on the planet and i for one cant wait to see him get kayoed again and that wont be long if not kotelnik then soon
hatton is a joke who has he fought up untill now a brawler with no talent just like his fans.this kid will give him a lesson like his buddy pacman we will be expecting a clinical job knockout and on a strecher.
this auther has serious envy just give credit were it’s due he done well up to now big time remember boxing was a dead sport till this kid came.
Ok Ok Ok, I have watched all of Khan’s fights and granted he did look alot better defence wise against a half blind opponent in Barrera. I also have watched Kotelnik a number of times and Khan definately has the tools to stop him. But lets not forget Kotelnik is a very accurate puncher albeit not much power, but if Limond and Gomez can knock khan down, Kolnelnik with his accuracy certainly can do too. All this talk of Khan being able to beat Hatton etc is nonsense, and though I expect him to stop Kolnelnik if he gets at him early, there is always a chance he gets KO’ed too. I cannot stand the hype for Amir, fact is he’s well overated, and already has been knocked out far worse than even Hatton did against Paq.. This is from a English man, stop the Amir Hype, P2P, even with the best trainer I can’t see it personally..
Amir Khan no chin, fake and a c4k……..this is from an englishman.
this writers mad kotelnic to ko khan?not likely im afraid,kotelnic aint had a ko for years,also khan will overwhelme him with that fantastic hand speed .kotelnic wont know what day it is ,easy belt in the bag,then khan better get ready for the big boyz.khan ko 5 kotelnic
KHAN is a supreme!!! boxer under the control of GREAT FREDDIE ROACH, but lets stop compairing him to FLOYD MAYWEATHER, e.g, OK, thier not in the same league. OK
KHANS gona win a tough fight, then i think he should move down to lightweight, KHAN is running before walking.
I think everyone is forgetting that Khan is now training with one of the best coaches in the world – Freddie roach and his hand speed looks serious. His training and sparring partner is arguably the best fighter in the world – Manny PACMAN…..Has anyone seen Khan training on you tube lately? When he spar’s with Pacquaio he hits hard, proper hard! His stamina is awesome and he looks like he could do Kotelnik some serious damage! We all need to start giving the guy some credit and support! With Hatton taking hidings like he did against Pacquaio we need an up and coming world class fighter! Lets see if we cant make it out of Khan!
I think Khan is by far the better boxer here, he could easily cruise to a lopsided 12 rounder, or if he dares to he could pile on the pressure with fast accurate power shots and finish it.
But then even though his gaurds looking much approved you dont go through a fight not getting punched and this is a weight up from what hes used to and this is a world champion.
Honestly i think he will get clubbed with something in a fight hes lookin in full control of, can happen at any time and it could come unexpected but it will come.
Though id be happy for him to shove my prediction back down my throat i am a fan after all.
i dont think khan has questionable stamina at all as stated in the article . He went 12 rounds against gary st clair and that was all action from khan.Now his stamina is probably much better because he trains very hard at the wild card gym.His conditioning coach alex ariza compared his conditioning to the late diego corrales and said that there is a specific exercise at the wild card where fighters have to run up and down 400(200 up and 200 down) steps at the hills in santa monica and khan managed to do this 10 times on his first try whereas paquiao only manage 5 or 6 times maximum.Remember the barrera fight where khan was all action against barrera for five rounds and showed no signs of slowing down.So how can his stamina be questionable? I have no doubt that this will be a hard fight for Khan and in my mind it will go the distance but i think he has a good chance of winning.
If the fight lasts 12 rounds i really can’t see Kotelnik winning due to the sheer volume of punches thrown by Khan. As for a knockout by Kotelnik, also extremely unlikely due to the lack of punching power when compared to other Light-Welterweights.
Bredis Prescotts’ power is extremely underrated, with people instead saying Khan can’t take a punch. It’s hard to argue with an 18/21 knockout record. The reason he’s underrated is due to his relatively unknown origins.
Hopefully Khan uses his training with Roach sucessfully because he certainly has the boxing skills to back it up.
I dont think Amir is given credit for the athlete he actully is. He is so deicated and with a coach like freddie i think hes going to a pound for pound fighter when he is older. I thnk the strenghth he had is underrated but the speed he has is amazing and that will be the key and can see khan blowing kotelink out in a the later rounds. Remember Speed kills.