What does Khan’s win over Salita prove?

By William Mackay: Last Saturday night, World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Amir Khan took out Dmitriy Salita in a 1st round knockout at the Metro Arena, in Newcastle. The win appears to have created a minor Khan craze and made boxing fans from all regions view Khan as being the new world wild star in the sport. The win was certainly very spectacular because Khan was able to knock Salita down in the opening seconds with a left-right combination.

But as good as the victory is, Khan still needs to prove himself against top level opposition before he gets the hardcore knowledgeable fans to buy into the hype. There are many people who say that Salita should never have been ranked number #1 by the WBA. In fact, many people wonder how Salita, with his obviously greatly inflated record built on the backs of entirely 2nd and 3rd tier fighters, was even ranked in the top 15 at all.

Salita never showed any outward signs of being a top level fighter, yet the WBA sanctioning body saw him as a number #1 contender. In contrast, none of the other sanctioning bodies – WBC, IBF and WBO – had Salita ranked in the top 15.

Why the WBA had Salita ranked so highly is very curious. Whether Salita turns out to be as good as the ranking that the WBA gave to him won’t be known for some years. Boxing fans won’t know how good Salita is until he consistently starts fighting first level opposition. As of now, Salita has had one fight against a top level fighter during his entire eight year pro career and we saw what happened to Salita when he fought that fighter (Khan) last Saturday night.

Before we crown Khan the next star of the boxing world, shouldn’t he beat someone that all the sanctioning bodies agree is a top five fighters? This is the problem. Khan beat Salita last Saturday night, but Khan may have actually beaten a fighter closer to being a 2nd tier fighter rather than a 1st tier.

This is why boxing fans need to perhaps put the fight in perspective and wait until Khan beats a more established top 10 fighter like Devon Alexander, Marcos Maidana, Timothy Bradley, Kendall Holt, Lamont Peterson, Juan Urango, or Victor Ortiz before fans see him as the next star. After all, it was only last year that Khan was knocked out in the 1st round by Breidis Prescott.

Since that time, Khan has faced in the following order Osin Fagan, Marco Antonio Barrera, Andriy Kotelnik and Dmitriy Salita. What all of the fighters have in common is that all of them have little if any power. None of them are big punchers and by beating these guys it doesn’t answer questions about Khan’s reputation for having a glass jaw. In each case, these fighters were badly flawed and appear to be the perfect opponent for Khan.

It’s a credit to Khan’s management for their good match making in setting Khan up with these fighters rather than fights against arguably much more dangerous opponents like Maidana, Bradley, Alexander, Holt, Peterson, Ortiz and Urango. But because of the careful match making, it’s hard to give Khan as much credit as he would get if he had been in with better fighters. Barrera had only recently moved up to lightweight when he fought Khan, and hadn’t looked good. In addition, Barrera was 35 and looking like he had left his best years behind him years ago. Fagan was a 2nd tier fighter at best. Kotelnik was what many boxing fans felt the weakest of the light welterweight champions at the time that Khan fought him.

And Salita, as I’ve already stated, might not have deserved to be ranked in the top 15. This is why Khan supporters need to wait and see about him before crowing him the next superstar. Wait at least until Khan beats a live body before he’s hyped as the next big thing. As of now, Khan has beaten no one other than an old Barrera and Kotelnik, who was seen as a paper champion.

Khan hasn’t even attempted to avenge his knockout loss to Prescott. As of this writing, there is talk of Khan fighting Kevin Mitchell, a small lightweight from Britain. That fight, although good for domestic consumption, won’t prove anything other than that Khan can beat a fighter that is smaller than him and who just recently moved up to lightweight. This isn’t a fight against a top level light welterweight.

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