Dibella: Khan lacks the power to fight at welterweight
December 23rd, 2011
By 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 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.
Tags: 5 Responses to “Dibella: Khan lacks the power to fight at welterweight”
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I AGREE with the above artice – Khan was not survive at 147 he doenst have the power to hurt anyone- if he cant hurt LP whaat chance he’s got to hurt Kell brook, Ortiz, Berto, Mike Jones etc… ne needs to work in the power to hurt his opponets to back off
Peterson was a good test for Khan to see how he would go against a pressure fighter. I’m sure it was considered low risk because Peterson is a relatively light puncher.
Khan did not pass this test. He couldnt back Peterson up and in my view cannot seem to get out of some of his amateur boxing habits.
Boxing skill and Handspeed are Khans greatest assets, although if he cant hurt his opponents to slow them down he is going to end up getting knocked out in the later rounds by heavy punchers..
Picture the Cotto – Margarito fight. Cotto is similar in that he needed to move around and slow Margarito down. Cotto boxed a lot better in the last fight although you could see that he was getting caught more the longer the fight went on..So the game became if Cotto stays on his feet he wins on points. If Margarito catches Cotto in the late rounds he wins by KO.
Khan is just full of himself. His just a loud mouth like Haye!
Khan’s toolbox will always be half empty, because he’s too reliant on the coach and game plans. There is nothing wrong with following a game plan but failing to make adjustments during a fight is a sign of an average or low class fighter.
Peterson solved the puzzle within one and a half round (round 1 to 2), this was after both of them realised that the other man in the ring was not Joe Cortez. So what was Khan’s plan B? Cover up the same way he did against Maidana? lol… easy meat for Peterson, the kid was having that body. And when Khan couldn’t bear the body shots, he started fouling. That was it, the toolbox was empty.
Looks like the ghost of Breidis Prescott lives on, because it was after being KO’d by this guy that Khan started covering up like that, leaving his body exposed. And after winning several fights with his new found “defence”, Khan’s development stagnated in this department.
Seriously, from 2008 and that’s the best and only defence Khan has learnt? It will take more than a life time for Khan to become a top class fighter.
How can anyone take that idiot Khan seriously, like this article his whole career has been steered & talked about how to keep him away from any decent fighter, it’s a laughing matter & this clown think’s he is a great, Khan must know himself he is a joke! Goldengirl is full of bums like JC Chavez, Khan, Ginger head Canelo all of them are a laughing stock.
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Chavez Jr. is with Top Rank, but I hear where you’re coming from