(Photo: Sumio Yamada) By Sean McDaniel: David Haye doesn’t see his close friend Amir Khan as being a washed up fighter after Khan’s latest defeat, a 4th round TKO to WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia last Saturday night. While many boxing fans and writers see Khan as being pretty much finished as a world class fighter, Haye thinks Khan will come back and rebuild his career like he did after being destroyed by Breidis Prescott in 2008.

I don’t know that I agree. That was then and this was now. It was a different shot that felled Khan in the Prescott loss.

Haye said to thesun.co.uk “He will still get the big fights, guaranteed because he’s Amir Khan and puts bums in seats. He’s a young 25-year-old fighter who can produce the goods when it counts. It was just an off night and he’ll make everyone eat their words…He’ll come back stronger…He knows what he needs to address in the gym.”

Khan will likely still sell a lot of tickets as long as he doesn’t take too many more loses. There are fans that will continue to show up to see him fight hoping he can turn things around. Perhaps an equal amount of fans will want to see Khan fight again just to see if he’ll continue to get knocked out. One thing is for sure, Khan does sell tickets and he brings in high ratings on television. His loss to Garcia won’t change that.

It’s still open to debate whether Khan will come back stronger like Haye mentioned. When you’ve been hurt like Khan was from the big left hand that hit him on the side of the neck, it could lead to Khan being more susceptible to getting knocked out in the future. Getting hit in the neck like this is similar to getting hit with a rabbit punch to the back of the head.

This in turn can damage the cervical vertebrae and/or spinal cord. It’s no wonder that Khan was so badly hurt and unable to keep his balance after getting hit in that area. It was a legal shot, but it did serious damage to him. Hopefully, the damage isn’t long term, but if then it’s doubtful that Khan will come back stronger like Haye says. If anything he’ll come back highly vulnerable to suffering additional knockouts in future bouts.