Dibella: Khan lacks the power to fight at welterweight

By Boxing News - 12/23/2011 - Comments

Image: Dibella: Khan lacks the power to fight at welterweightBy William Mackay: Promoter Lou Dibella is a big fan of Amir Khan and marvels at his hand speed and his boxing skills. However, Dibella was greatly disappointed in watching Khan struggle and lose to Lamont Peterson recently in Washington, DC.

Dibella saw it as a close fight, but felt Khan rightfully lost the fight. Dibella didn’t like the shoving that Khan was doing in the fight, and also wasn’t pleased to see him getting backed up by a light puncher like Peterson. Dibella sees this as a bad sign for Khan for when he eventually moves up to the welterweight division. He feels that if Khan doesn’t have the power to back up a light hitter like Peterson, then he will be over his head when he faces quality welterweights like Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Dibella is correct. If Khan that he was facing a lot of pressure against Peterson just wait until he gets in the ring with solid welterweights like Victor Ortiz, Mayweather, Mike Jones, Kell Brook and Andre Berto.

Those guys not only can punch but there also very fast as well. Khan may have a small hand speed advantage against all of them, but he won’t have the same kind of size and speed advantage that he’s had at 140. More and more it would require Khan to be able to take heavy shots and move a lot in order to beat those guys. He’s not going beat Mayweather, Ortiz or Berto on the inside because all three of those fighters are technically proficient on the inside unlike Khan, who gets by on the inside by shoving and pulling down on his opponent’s heads.

Dibella told the dailymail.co.uk “You can’t go shoving your opponents across the ring with both hands. Amir got warned and got docked. End of story…I couldn’t believe how he let himself be backed up by a smaller man who is a light puncher. He should have dominated this fight…Amir should have been the one going forward…He should be thinking seriously about whether he should go up to welterweight. If he can’t put away 140 pounders how’s he going to stop a Mayweather?”

The fact of the matter is Khan won’t be able to stop Mayweather or beat him by a decision. I don’t even think that matters too much to him. I think Khan would like the money he would get for a Mayweather bout and losing won’t be such a big deal. Khan can tell himself that he’s still young, still getting better and he lost to the top fighter in boxing. And best of all, Khan would be happy he got the biggest payday of his career. But I agree with Dibella that Khan is probably making a mistake by moving up if he plans on staying at that weight after he gets his money fight against Mayweather.

There are only a small handful of fighters at 147 where Khan will get big money, and those guys –Ortiz and Berto – would both likely beat Khan. It’s hardly worth staying at 147 after Khan gets his payday bout against Mayweather because Ortiz and Berto are simply too dangerous for Khan.

If Khan wants to fight at 147 so he doesn’t have to struggle to make the 140 pound weight at light welterweight, then I can certainly understand that. But Khan will have to dodge the bigger punchers in the division if he wants to keep from getting knocked out.

Khan’s promoters have done a good job of keeping him away from punchers for the most part since he was stopped by Breidis Prescott in one round in 2008. The only puncher that Khan has faced in the past three years was the painfully slow Marcos Maidana, who had Khan staggering around the ring last December in a fight where Khan likely should have been stopped had the referee not gotten in the way of Maidana repeatedly while he was trying to finish Khan off.

Can Khan be steered around the best fighters at welterweight to keep him winning? Yes, I think so. If they aim him towards the WBA welterweight paper champion Vyacheslav Senchenko, Khan can beat that guy and probably hold onto the belt for a defense or two before he’s forced to defend the title against Mike Jones or Kell Brook. Khan would likely lose to both of those fighters eve with his shoving and holding in full effect and being allowed by a referee that’s looking the other way.



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