By William Mackay: If WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (23-0, 14 KO’s) hasn’t figured it out by now how to beat Amir Khan (26-2, 18 KO’s) then he needs to sit down and watch Khan’s loss to IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson last December in Washington, DC. Peterson revealed how to beat Khan quite clearly in that fight.

Garcia’s approach to beating 35-year-old Erik Morales was all wrong for that fight, and hopefully Garcia isn’t planning on fighting that way against Khan because he’ll lose if he fights like that. Garcia fought on the outside for the most part against Morales, and ended up making the fight a lot harder than it really should have been. Morales was able to bust up Garcia’s nose with his jab from the outside, and he made a mess up Garcia’s face.

The trick to beating Khan is for Garcia to stay on top of him, and not let Khan get space to punch and run. Garcia has to make this an inside fight, because Khan doesn’t even had the beginning stages of an inside game. That entire part of his game has been neglected. That’s a product of Khan’s long amateur background, which frowns on the use of an inside fighting game and focuses more on fighters staying on the outside looking to score points.

Since Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach hasn’t made any progress with Khan in teaching him an inside game, Garcia has to take advantage of that by fighting Khan in close all night. You can expect Khan to be up to his usual tricks of shoving, pulling down on Garcia’s head, putting him in head locks and then dashing away like a thief in the night. But Garcia and his trainer need to be vocal to the referee to let him know that it’s not okay for Khan to foul.

Beyond that, Garcia has to jog after Khan when he starts his usual running to keep him from getting away. That’s the thing with a runner. If you let them hit and run, they’ll do it all night long and win a decision. That’s why you’ve got to be quick to cut off the ring and force them to fight it out rather than scurry away to safety.