Observations on Khan-Salita and Prescott-Mitchell

By Scott Gilfoid: First let me start off by saying that the decision given to Kevin Mitchell (30-0, 22 KO’s) was one of the most undeserving that I’ve ever seen since I started following boxing many years ago. No way did I see Mitchell winning this fight, not with the running he did against the hard hitting Breidis Prescott (21-2, 18 KO’s). Man, I haven’t seen running like that since I watched David Haye fight Nikolay Valuev. Mitchell was literally running from Prescott for 12 rounds, especially from rounds nine through twelve.

The judges gave Mitchell the win by a 12 round decision by the scores of 118-111, 117-111 and 119-110. I personally had Prescott winning the fight nine rounds to three. But I can see how the judges might have been influenced because the British crowd were screaming their heads off for every punch that Mitchell. And, yeah, Mitchell was missing or having his punches blocked by Prescott. I readily admit that Prescott missed a lot of shots, but doesn’t matter.

Prescott was the one landing the much harder shots in every round, the one that was doing the pressuring and landing the cleaner punches all the way through it. All Mitchell did was pot shot and run laterally all fight long. He really stunk up the place with his running. The scores are absolutely ridiculous, but then again, I’m not surprised after watching the Andre Dirrell vs. Carl Froch bout in Nottingham.

Mitchell did nothing in the fight other than throw jabs until the 8th round. By that time, I had Mitchell well behind in the fight five rounds to zero. I do think Mitchell fought well enough to win rounds six through nine. He edged those rounds by a small margin. But from rounds ten to twelve, Mitchell got on his bike and basically ran for the final three rounds of the bout.

If Mitchell had fought hard and fought toe to toe with Prescott during those rounds, I think he would have won it just barely, but instead Mitchell ran like no tomorrow. Occasionally he’d throw a pot shot or two, but nothing beyond that. Most of his offense entailed him throwing jabs and looking to land an infrequent power shot. The running was horrible to watch. I really feel sorry for Prescott, because he clearly won this fight as far as I’m concerned.

The referee Dave Parris seemed to choose the exact moments when Prescott was getting his shots off to step in and warn him for things. On one occasion, Parris warned Prescott for punching Mitchell in the back. However, Prescott had no other choice because Mitchell turned around and exposed his back so that he wouldn’t get hit by Prescott.

The warning wasted valuable time just when Prescott was teeing off on Mitchell against the ropes. It reminded me of how a British referee stopped the action in the Ricky Hatton vs. Juan Lazcano fight to let Hatton get his shoelaces tied. At the time that the referee stopped the action, Hatton had just been staggered and was taking punishment. Great timing, eh?

The British crowd often cheered Mitchell’s misses and his punches that were being blocked. This might have had an effect on the judges. It had to, because Mitchell was getting hit hard in the fight and not making a fight of it. I couldn’t give him rounds when he was running all over creation trying to keep from getting hit by Prescott. At the same time, the British crowd would be stone cold silent whenever Prescott would be landing his shots. In pretty much every round, Prescott landed the better shots. Mitchell may have out-landed him in some of the rounds, but that’s only if you couldn’t his weak jabs. Prescott had the much harder jab and was regularly snapping the head back of Mitchell.

It’s really too bad that mostly British boxing fans will see this fight, because if the rest of the world saw it like they did the Dirrell-Froch fight, they would agree with me that Prescott won the fight. It wasn’t even close. Prescott dominated the bout.

I hope that Mitchell and his fans aren’t getting excited about him winning a title, because unless he’s going after a paper title like Amir Khan, I can’t see Mitchell capturing one. I don’t consider Mitchell a top 10 fighter in the lightweight division, honestly. My estimation of his talent will bear fruit in the future when Mitchell is steered into a fight with a good lightweight.

I don’t give Mitchell one chance in hell of beating champions Edwin Valero, Antonio DeMarco, Juan Manuel Marquez, Paulus Moses, Miguel Acosta or Michael Katsidis. Besides them, I see the following lightweights as being much better fighters than Mitchell: Joel Casamayor, Joan Guzman, Ali Funeka, Anthony Peterson, Miguel Vazquez, Yuri Romanov, David Diaz, and Urbano Antillon.

In other words, I see Mitchell as a 2nd tier fighter. I don’t count the victory over Prescott, because like I said, I saw Prescott winning the fight 9 rounds to 3. The good thing that will come out of this fight is that there will likely be an over reach on Mitchell’s management’s part, who after seeing this fight, will probably make the mistake by thinking Mitchell is good enough to beat a top fighter. If they put Mitchell in with a top 10 fighter, he’s going to be torn apart. Forget about putting in with a champion. Mitchell will be beaten by a good top 10 fighter, unless the poor shmuck ends up losing a questionable decision like Prescott did.

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As for the Amir Khan vs. Dmitriy Salita fight, I’m not impressed with Khan’s win. The reason is I don’t consider Salita to be a top tier fighter. I’m really not sure why on earth the WBA pushed Salita to the number #1 spot given his record of almost all C and B level fighters. Salita didn’t have one good A class fighter on his record. Because of that, I didn’t consider him a real top 15 contender.

Obviously, Freddie Roach saw what I saw, hence he allowed Khan to defend the title and no vacate it. If this was Marcos Maidana in there instead of the slow as molasses Salita, I have no doubt that Khan would have vacated the fight instead of taking him on. Salita gave Khan a chance for an easy defense, and enabled him to keep the myth alive for a little while longer.

Salita went down from the first two shots he was hit with, collapsing on the canvas after getting hit with a 1-2 combination in the opening seconds of the fight. I couldn’t believe it, because he looked like a weak chinned amateur instead of a number #1 contender. I can’t get excited about Khan’s win over a fighter like that. I’m sorry. Salita was heard from the knockdown and seemed to be staggering a little after he got up.

Khan then bum rushed him and dropped him in the corner with a left to the jewels followed by a fight to the head that sent Salita down on his knees. While he was down, Khan teed off on him with two free shots, which he didn’t get warned about from the referee from what I saw. There should have been a five minute time period for Salita to recover from the punches while he was down like David Haye received after he was hit after falling down in his fight with Monte Barrett last year. After Salita got up, Khan finished him off with a left to the head that sent him into the ropes where the referee decided to stop the fight.

This win won’t excite Americans and suddenly make Khan a huge star in the U.S. The reason is Salita isn’t well known in the U.S. He may be an American, but he’s not well known outside of the East Coast, and even then, no one is saying he’s going to be a champion. America has a lot of light welterweights, and just because he’s an American doesn’t mean we’re familiar with him.

Khan basically beat a little known fighter with horrible hand speed. This wasn’t the powerful Maidana or the tough Lamont Peterson, Devon Alexander or Timothy Bradley. Salita was someone that really had no business fighting for a title, not when he hadn’t faced a 1st tier fighter before in his career. I see Khan still getting knocked out by Prescott if he ever fights him again. He won’t. The decision loss to Mitchell finishes any hope of Khan facing Prescott again in this lifetime. That’s too bad, because I think Prescott beat Mitchell, and I think he’d destroy Khan again if he fights him.

I sure don’t want to watch Mitchell fight Khan, and I hope Khan isn’t planning on dragging Mitchell to the U.S. to fight here. That fight won’t draw flies because no one knows who Mitchell is and the fight will basically stink with both fighters running around the ring for 12 rounds. I’m not impressed with Khan, but I do think he’s a top 15 fighter in the light welterweight division. I see Khan as being about the 15th beat light welterweight in the division. But Mitchell, I see him as 2nd tier all the way.

It will be really interesting to see who Khan is matched up against next. Although he’s mentioning Ricky Hatton a lot, but that’s not happening. Neither is a fight against Marquez. Since both of them won’t be available, I see Khan going after someone like Mitchell. Khan won’t t want to fight Maidana, and I can’t see Khan facing a tough light welterweight contender. Khan just finished facing a totally weak number #1 mandatory in Salita.

But Khan will probably take someone weak just the same. Watch, it will probably be Mitchell. What a crummy fight that will be. Khan might as well stay in England if that’s who he’ll be fighting. I still see Khan as a paper champion and someone who will never beat a real champion with any real talent. If he had been facing Prescott on Saturday night instead of the slow moving glass jawed Salita, Khan would have likely been taken out of the ring on a stretcher. Prescott would have destroyed him.

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