By Scott Gilfoid: Trainer Virgil Hunter believes 100% that his fighter former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (27-3, 19 KO’s) will become a world champion again in the near future, and Hunter says this is going to give him a lot of satisfaction when that happens because it’ll prove all the doubters wrong. Hunter thinks Khan doesn’t have a bad chin. He just thinks Khan makes wrong decisions after he gets hurt.
Hunter said to thaboxingvoice.co “He [Khan] beat a very good fighter in Carlos Molina…Amir Khan has proven he can get up. He’s proven he can take a shellacking. [Marcos] Maidana put a shellacking on him, and he stood up to it…My determination is to have the last laugh. I think he’ll soon be back on top.”
I understand how Hunter would want to be building up Khan because that’s his job, but I hope he’s not believing the stuff he’s saying because he’s going to be so disappointed when Khan gets knocked out the next time he faces an opponent with power.
Hunter thinks Khan would have been okay had he fought smart after getting hurt by Danny Garcia last year in the fight that Khan was stopped in the 4th round. I don’t agree with that at all. Khan would have been in trouble even if he had run, which is exactly what he did for the remainder of the 3rd round after getting knocked down. Khan wasn’t mixing it up in the 4th. He was mostly running and still getting knocked down.
I think Hunter doesn’t fully realize yet Khan’s chin problem. He’ll see soon enough when Khan gets knocked out again. I know Hunter wants to believe that Khan is someone he can improve, but it doesn’t matter how much movement he has Khan using to avoid getting hit, he’s still going to get hit enough to where’s he’s going to have problems. If Khan fights Lucas Mattysse or Danny Garcia, he’s going to get knocked out by both of them, and there’s not much Hunter can do about it other than to help Khan out after the fight is over.
The “shellacking” that Khan took in his win over Maidana would have likely ended with him getting knocked out had the referee working that fight not stepped in over and over again to break the action when Maidana pummeling a badly hurt Khan against the ropes. To this day, I don’t understand the logic that was behind the breaks in the action. Additionally, a lot of referees would have stopped the fight as soon as Khan was staggered and out on his feet. When you have a fighter in that condition, a lot of referees will stop the fight.
If Khan wins a world title, I just don’t see him holding onto it for any length of time. I think he’s being angled by Golden Boy to try and capture the WBA/WBC titles from Garcia, and then vacate them to move up to 147 to try and get a fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. I don’t think Khan will face someone like Matthysse and risk getting knocked out by him. Khan getting past Garcia will be a minor miracle undo itself, but Matthysse is much more dangerous than Garcia because he can punch with huge power with both hands and not just his left like Garcia.
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