Amir Khan: Can He Hold onto His Title for Long?

By Scott Gilfoid: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (21-1, 15 KO’s) is a special kind of fighter. He punches with blazing speed, and moves around the ring better than most light welterweights in the division. To see him throw punches, you’d think that he’s unbeatable. The problem is Khan has a chin like glass and has been knocked down again and again during his four year pro career by even light punchers.

Somehow, with superb match-making on the part of his management team, Khan has been able to win a title despite being knocked into the stratosphere by Breidis Prescott last year. His opponent, Andriy Kotelnik, a weak puncher with good boxing skills, didn’t have the one ingredient that was needed to beat Khan – namely power. As such, the 22-year-old Khan was able to win a 12 round decision without being knocked to the canvas like has in some of his other bouts.

The win was a good one and to hear Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach tell you, it’s only the beginning. Roach may be right if he can improve Khan’s defense enough to cover up his fragile chin. Thus far, Roach’s work on Khan’s defense has paid off, because Khan has looked really good in his last two fights against Marco Antonio Barrera and Kotelnik, doing a great job of avoiding shots.

Those were great performances and a good start for Khan. Now, unfortunately, the hard part begins for Khan. He has the World Boxing Association light welterweight title and will have to start defending the title, starting with his number #1 challenger Dimitry Salita (30-0-1, 16 KO’s) in the coming months.

This should be an easy fight for Khan, because Salita doesn’t appear to be in the same class as Khan in talent or experience. Once Khan gets rid of Salita, the hard part begins for Khan and he’ll have to make a decision whether it’s worth it or not to continue to defend his WBA title.

The reason is because the interim WBA light welterweight champion is knockout artist Marcos Maidana (26-1, 25 KO’s), a fighter who recently destroyed light welterweight prospect Victor Ortiz in six brutal rounds on June 27th. Roach may be an excellent trainer, one of the best in the sport, but he’s not a miracle worker.

Even with his best fight plan, he probably won’t be able to protect Khan from getting hit really hard by Maidana at least 10 times per round. That’s a conservative number on my part, because I can see Maidana landing double that against Khan, no matter how much running that Khan does in the fight. My concern for Khan is that I don’t know that he can take getting hit 10 times per round without getting knocked down repeatedly and ending up looking like beached whale on the canvas.

I just don’t think it’s possible for Khan to stay upright under the kind of pounding that Maidana will be inflicting on him in a fight. Ortiz tried running from Maidana in their fight but it didn’t work at all, Maidana expertly cut off the ring on Ortiz and drilled him with some big shots.

With Maidana’s power, all it takes is one big punch and it’s over. As much as I’d like to think that Khan will hold onto the WBA light welterweight title for a long time to come, I really think Khan is going to vacate the title immediately after doing away with Salita. It’s too bad, because by vacating the title, it will feed the perception that Khan is a protected fighter afraid to fight sluggers.

Roach could try to dampen that by giving a lot of interviews and saying good things about Khan, telling people he’s one of the top pound for pound fighters. That probably won’t work if Khan vacates or avoids Maidana, but Roach can try.

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