Khan vs. McCloskey: This is like two steps backwards for Amir

By William Mackay: Most fighters want to continue to progress and move forward with their careers by taking on better and better fighters each time out. Some, however, tend to take things in reverse either to milk whatever paper titles that they may have won or just because they are their management just aren’t paying attention to their career path. WBA Super World light welterweight champion Amir Khan (24-1, 17 KO’s) seems to jammed his career into the reverse mode by taking on little known, slow and weak punching Paul McCloskey (22-0, 12 KO’s) on April 16th at the M.E.N. Arena in Manchester, England.

This is a fight that Khan wants but precious few others agree with this choice of opponent. You know things are bad when boxing fans prefer to see Khan face his former conqueror Breidis Prescott rather than McCloskey, because Prescott has struggled since utterly destroying Khan in one brutal round in 2008. Khan still has no interest in facing Prescott, and has written him off as not being worth the trouble because of his lack of continued success.

In contrast, Khan has been matched very carefully since his loss to Prescott and put in with largely weak punchers until his recent fight against Marcos Maidana last December. Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach put together the perfect fight plan to beat Maidana, which included a lot of running, a lot of holding and a lot of quick flurries to impress the judges. It was like watching one of Oscar De La Hoya’s old fights where he does little in the round but then steals it with a flurry of punches that hit mostly air and arms. The judges often scored rounds for De La Hoya where he had done very little.

This was the case Khan’s fight against Maidana. But at the end of the day, Khan got the win and you would think he would keep moving forward against quality opposition or at least stay on the same level as he was in the Maidana fight. Instead, Khan chose McCloskey to fight and few people want to see this fight other than McCloskey’s fans in Ireland and some of Khan’s diehard British fans. I see this as a huge step backwards for Khan, past guys like Paulie Malignaggi and past even Prescott to a much more beginning level for Khan. I don’t care if the WBA has given McCloskey an inflated ranking because they also had Dimitriy Salita ranked #1 when Khan fought him in 2009. Like Salita, McCloskey also has never fought a top tier fighter. The Khan fight will be his first. What does that tell you?

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