Is Khan the Most Protected Fighter In Boxing?

By Scott Gilfoid: Thus far Amir Khan has yet to rehabilitate himself since losing a 1st round knockout at the hands of Breidis Prescott last September. Naturally, there hasn’t been a rematch with the Colombian Prescott, and I doubt there ever will. That would seem like the logical thing for Khan to do. It probably won’t ever happen unless Prescott starts getting knocked out every fight all of a sudden.

Khan isn’t about to be put in with any big sluggers any time soon. Forget about fights against Junior Witter, Timothy Bradley, Nate Campbell and Marcos Maidana. Those fighters will have to be content fighting each other, because I can’t see Khan fighting any of them. Khan’s recent competition – Osin Fagan, Marco Antonio Barrera and Andriy Kotelnik – have hinted at the direction that Khan will be positioned from now on.

I think Freddie Roach won’t be putting Khan anywhere near a fighter with any kind of power for the five to ten years, maybe more. The problem here is that Khan will have to shop around to get wins, looking for either beatable champions with zero power like Kotelnik or else taking on beat up former champions like Ricky Hatton, Erik Morales or Barrera to fight.

Forget about Khan fighting the best in the light welterweight or lightweight divisions, because I can’t see that happening. As I mentioned earlier in another article, Khan will probably vacate his WBA light welterweight title once Maidana becomes his mandatory challenger.

Maidana is the equivalent of a super charged version of Prescott, and he’d likely take Khan’s head clean off if he got the chance to fight him. Boxing is all about match ups. While Maidana lost a questionable decision to Kotelnik in February, Maidana would still in all likelihood destroy Khan in a round or two if he had a chance to fight him. The odds of Maidana or one of the other quality fighters like Bradley, Witter and Campbell of fighting Khan are probably slim and none.

Khan will probably continue to be matched softly going forward, with his next opponent winding up to be someone like Erik Morales or Dimitri Salita. The later fighter is Khan’s mandatory challenger, so I can’t hold it against Khan for fighting him.

However, I do have a problem if Khan turns around and fights someone like Morales or some other soft opponent. You’d like to think that now that Khan is a champion he’ll be looking to take on the best fighters, but unfortunately that probably won’t happen.

Sure, he’d jump at the chance to fight Ricky Hatton, but then again, Hatton is a fight where it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose because the money is so good. Hatton is also still recovering from a knockout loss to Manny Pacquiao, and for him it’s dangerous for him to take on anyone right now with halfway decent skills.

It was a stroke of luck that Kotelnik happened to be a title holder when Khan went lucking to win an easy belt. Had Kotelnik not been around and if someone like Maidana or Campbell was holding down the belts, along with Bradley, I don’t think for a second that Khan would step it up against either of those guys. That would be too dangerous for a fighter with a weak chin like Khan.

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