(Photo: Sumio Yamada) By Alex Sharpno: I have always been a massive Amir Khan fan and I still do like him as a fighter. His fights have been very exciting and he has been a credit to the sport. When he first crossed over the pond to the states he put on a great show against Paulie Maligaggi and then moved on to his big real test at 140, a fight with the hard hitting Marcos Maidana.

Khan fought very well off the back foot in that fight beating Maidana to the punch but also trying to keep him at range. Maidana did land a lot of shots to Khan’s head during the fight but when he connected a big shot on the chin he had Khan in massive trouble and Amir showed massive heart and courage to get out of round ten and then survive until the end of the fight.

After the Maidana fight I thought Amir was going to go from strength to strength. He had fought very well but there were some obvious floors in his game which I thought were going to be fixed in training and in future fights. Unfortunately after that fight Khan seemed to think he had the best chin in boxing. Don’t get me wrong he absorbed some massive shots against Maidana but that is no reason to suddenly want to trade with everyone and believe you can take massive shots every time you fight.

After the Paul McCloskey and Zab Judah fights, (which Amir won using his hand speed and footwork) came the fight with Lamont Peterson. Now just forget the outcome and the drugs, Khan seemed to think that just because Peterson was not a big puncher that he could simply blow him out of the water. I feel like Khan lets his ego get into the fight too much. There is no shame in not having an amazing chin and you can still be a world beater but you have to fight the right fight in order to protect it. At the end of the day it is about winning the fight. If that means you have to stay on the back foot and pick opponents off then so be it. Khan is a great boxer with great hand speed, but he is not a great fighter. He is not like Carl Froch who can walk through massive shots to land his own because he neither has the chin or the power to do this. Had Lamont Peterson possessed real knock out power Khan would have been knocked out in 6 rounds. If Khan had kept the fight at range and not stayed on the ropes and letting Lamont punish his body he would have won the fight. Look at Floyd Mayweather, he protects his chin always, he fights his fight and he wins. He uses the attributes that he was blessed with to his advantage and does not ever feel pressured to take unnecessary risks to prove a point or build on his ego.

I was so disappointed with Khan in the fight with Danny Garcia last Saturday night. Khan lost that fight for two reasons. The first reason was he let Danny’s father Angel Garcia get into his head. Angel knew full well Danny had the power to trouble Amir so he got him angry with comments leading up to the fight. We see this happen time after time and Amir took the bait. Look at when David Haye fought Wladamir Klitchko. Haye tried so hard to wind him up to make him walk onto a big shot but Wladamir had too much class and sense to take the bait. He used controlled aggression to beat Haye and picked his shots throwing straight punches. He did not come in wild throwing wide shots trying to take Haye out with each punch. Angel Garcia did as much work as Danny in winning the fight.

The second reason was respect. Khan showed that he had no respect for Danny Garcia or the threat he posed. Had he had respect the fight would not have ended when it did. Garcia is a counter puncher and although you should throw more than one shot at a time against counter punchers it needs to be in a controlled manor. Khan did not have the power to trouble Danny so he should have stuck to his boxing. When he got hit he was not even looking at the shot he was just coming straight at Garcia defenseless. Garcia is a very good young fighter, a great counter puncher and a great left hook and Khan got what he deserved for not respecting that and paid the ultimate price.

Amir needs to really think about his next move, he needs to stop going on about Mayweather in the build up to fights because he is basically saying he has already won. He needs to stop talking about himself as a superstar in the sport because he has not proved it yet. I even read that he claimed he was in a tougher division and had tougher fights that Carl Froch. I mean come on. Just cut the crap and concentrate on your boxing. I still think Amir can be up there and I think he should go for the re match because it is the only way he can re-dime himself. He needs to use all of the tools he has and cut out all of the bravado because it does not suit him. I really hope he turns it around.