Is Khan Ready For Kotelnik Bout?
June 16th, 2009
By William Mackay: Next month barring any kind of injury or problems with Andriy Kotelnik (31-2-1, 13 KOs) or Amir Khan’s (20-1, 15 KOs) teeth, we should be seeing what could end up being a very competitive fight. Khan, 22, is the favorite in this fight because of his better offensive skills but you never know what could happen in a fight like this because Khan has so little experience against top notch opposition other than Breidis Prescott and Marco Antonio Barrera.
Khan may just have captured his finest win of his career in his last bout, a 5th round technical decision over Barrera on March 14th. Khan looked impressive in dominating Barrera for five rounds until the bout was ultimately stopped in the 5th because of a cut on the forehead of Barrera.
The early stoppage robbed Khan of what looked what could have been an easy 12 round decision over Barrera. Instead, Khan had to be satisfied with dominating Barrera over five rounds instead of 12. The way that the fight ended seemed to fuel the speculation that Khan still hasn’t proven that he can beat a top tier fighter.
Part of the blame rests on Khan, because perhaps wasn’t the wisest move to select an old fighter like Barrera to get in the ring with. Money wise, sure this was a good fight for Khan because it gave him the opportunity to get a good payday without the risk that would be involved had he fought a top fighter like Nate Campbell. Juan Manuel Marquez or Timothy Bradley.
Choosing an older fighter like Barrera, whose best days are behind him by five to eight years, it wasn’t something that would get Khan much credit no matter how easily he defeated him. On July 18th, Khan should get a lot more credit if he can beat the 31-year-old Kotelnik.
The Ukrainian isn’t the best of the light welterweights in the division, but he’s at least a top five fighter and that won’t hurt Khan any. No one would expect Khan to step up immediately into the light welterweight division and fight someone like Bradley, Kendall Holt, Ricardo Torres or Victor Ortiz.
Khan can’t be blamed for choosing what many people feel who is the weakest of the light welterweight champions in Kotelnik. If Khan continues to skip around after beating Kotelnik looking for beatable opponents, then I’ll certainly feel different about him, but for now I’ll give khan a pass for fighting Kotelnik instead of Bradley or Holt.
But from this point forward, Khan needs to stick to the tougher opponents and stay away from fighting older fighters like Barrera and lesser ones like Osin Fagan. Khan needs to stay in the fast lane and continue with quality fighters in the future. I’m really hoping that Khan decides to defend the WBA light welterweight title if he’s lucky enough to beat Kotelnik, because I’d like to see Khan in against someone like Ortiz, Marcus Maidana, Victor Cayo or Campbell.
I think all of those are winnable fights for Khan if he can learn enough from his trainer Freddie Roach on how to defend his sometimes weak chin. If Khan get by those fighters without getting smashed like he was against Prescott, then I can see Khan holding onto the WBA title for some time to come but it’s not going to be easy because he’ll be tested big time by each of these guys.
If Khan vacates the title and moves back down to the lightweight division, then I can see Khan being hounded by criticism for some time to come.
Whether Khan is ready for Kotelnik or not is the big question. If one were to focus on the Barrera fight, you could say that Khan should be more than ready. But that fight ended much too quickly to find out whether khan could continue to fight well into the later rounds. Kotelnik will probably be there for the full 12 rounds and it will come down to whether Khan has the endurance to fight him long into the bout.
Tags: 7 Responses to “Is Khan Ready For Kotelnik Bout?”
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khan on points unless he gets caught, to tall/fast for kotelniks. i really hope he gets sparked though.
I think Ukansodoff maid a fair point that although Kotelnik is not a big puncher ‘how hard do you have to hit for Khan to go down’ we all remember Willie Limmond putting down Khan.
Kotelnik is a strange fighter because although he is slow footed he has fast hands which are accurate. Plus a guy who has not been on the floor in 30+ fights must be tough.
If Khan vs Barrera had gone the 12 rounds and the cut hadn’t happened, id have given Khan respect for winning. Barrera may have been past it but he was ranked number 1 in WBO’s rankings at the time, and he had a dream, so was hungry. But, the fight should have been stopped. As for people saying Barrera is as much at fault as the referee, remember its the refs job to make those calls, a fighter should never be consulted.
Khan vs Kotelnik will be a close fight, Kotelnik will eat up Khans shots, and probably look to dominate from the 5th onwards. Khan is likely to jab and move all night, keeping to the outside and racking up points as Kotelnik chases him.
Its a Khan points victory if he avoids slugging it out all night, Kotelnik wins if he pins Khan down.
Im sure plenty of people like myself view the Barrera fight as near enough a no contest.
Khan was on the way to dominating against the Mexican cut or no cut, Barrera was standing infront of him and Khan has blurring hand speed. But at any time Barrera could of landed a big shot and who knows what would of happened. (Timberrrrrr).
Khan will of trained for the Kotelnik fight as hard and as sensibly and as dedicated as any livin person possibly can. He will be in as good a shape as is humanly possible, hes a dedicated lad and as far as training goes he must be a dream for Freddie Roach.
But hes got that chin, i think hes much more skillful and will be better prepared and fitter than Kotelnik and will be the dominant force, BUT, he will get hit at some point.
I jsut cant see him standing up to any sustained punishment or even 1 big shot at any time. Yeah Kotelniks not much of a puncher but just how hard do you have to hit to put Khan down?
And also Roach has worked very hard with Khan on is defence and as good as it is its taking power away from his shots, as fast as ever but not as powerful.
Watch the Barrera fight, his gloves are virtually stuck to his chin and most his shots are thrown from the chin, theres not much power you can get into those shots.
Id love for Khan to win, im a big big fan of him but his chins just awful and its not likely to get much better.
But for Kotelnik to win hes guna have to stop Khan.
talking about khan vs barrera, why people forget that Barrera was given the option to declare it no contest (due to bad cut)in 3rd round but he was the one who chose to fight…why blame khan for everything?
Its not KHAN who chose to fight KOTELNIK, Infact it is the other way around. Nice article ,nonetheless.
i hope khan gets put on his arse.
he didnt beat barrera, it should of been a no-contest and everybody knows this. he’s had one decent opponent in his over-rated carrer and he put him down in 50-odd seconds.
never has somebody deserved any kind of title shot so less.