Roach: Khan can’t change his fighting style; he’ll be like he always is

By Boxing News - 12/14/2012 - Comments

roach43By William Mackay: Amir Khan’s former trainer Freddie Roach doesn’t see Khan being able to change his aggressive fighting style, and he questions whether that would even be a smart thing for him to try to do at this point in his career.

Roach believes that Khan will only put himself in danger if he fights in a conservative manner by standing in the pocket more like his new trainer Virgil Hunter wants him to do, and he doesn’t see Khan being able to turn into a counter puncher all of a sudden because that’s not something that’s easily done. Roach believes Khan is better off staying the aggressive fighter he’s always been, but being a little more cautious instead of looking to throw so many flurries.

Speaking with thesun.co.uk, Roach said “I think Amir is going to be aggressive [against Carlos Molina on Saturday] and throw combinations like he always does. I don’t see him changing. I think it’s impossible to change his mindset…If Khan hurts the guy [Molina], he’ll jump on him, like he always does…he can pay for it.”

Roach is right. Khan will always fight in an aggressive manner, and he probably is better off fighting like that. If Khan fights defensively, he’s going to extend his fights a lot longer and that’s going to give his opponents a better chance of landing a big shot that can hurt him the way that Danny Garcia did last July. And Khan will go after Molina or any of his opponents if he gets them hurt, and that’s not going to change with him ever.

If Khan stands in front of his opponents without throwing flurries and moving around, he’s going to have problems because he doesn’t have the strong chin to take return fire. He might be okay for this fight because Golden Boy Promotions has picked out a weak puncher for him to fight but Khan wants to fight better opposition after this fight and he can’t just stand in front of his opponents trying to imitate Andre Ward.



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