By John F. McKenna (McJack): Ever since former WBA/IBF light welterweight champion Amir Khan (26-3, 18 KO’s) was TKO’d by WBC/WBA and Ring light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (25-0, 16 KO’s) last July he has appeared to be looking for a way to shift the blame from himself to someone else. That “someone else” in this case is five time trainer of the year Freddie Roach.

For Amir the loss to Garcia was his 2nd straight loss. Last December Khan lost a hotly disputed decision to Lamont Peterson (30-1-1, 15 KO’s) in Washington, D.C. In both fights “King Khan” failed to follow the advice of his trainer Freddie Roach. In the Peterson fight Amir ignored Roach’s instructions to not get trapped on the ropes. Instead of heeding Roach’s advice, Khan decided to go mach and attempt to beat Lamont at his own game. In the end Amir lost a close fight in a fight that could have gone either way. The problem was that the fight should not have been close and would not have been close if Khan had followed his trainer’s instructions.

Amir set to redeem himself in July when he faced the undefeated Garcia. Again Khan failed to follow Roach’s instructions of not getting into a slugfest. The result for Khan was catastrophic. Amir used his speed to win the first two rounds and seemed to be on his way to victory. In the 3rd round Khan decided to engage Garcia and was knocked down by a well timed counter left hook. To his credit Amir attempted to fight on, but he never got back into the fight and the referee wisely halted the fight in the 4th round.

Following his TKO loss to Garcia, Khan made a series of contradictory statements to the press. At first Amir seemed to be partially blaming Roach for his losses. Then Khan would issue another comment stating that he was accepting full responsibility for his losses. The contradictory comments were not well received by either the press or by boxing fans.

Most recently Amir seemed to be saying that Roach was being affected by Parkinson’s disease which he has been afflicted with for a number of years. Many long time boxing observers were surprised that Khan would go there. For Roach, who had been close to Amir and once described him as being like a son to him, the comments about his Parkinson’s disease had to be the unkindest cut of all. Perhaps Amir could use a little maturity and a whole lot of compassion.