Khan will give Mayweather a lot of problems, says Farhood

By Boxing News - 12/05/2013 - Comments

khan#11By Scott Gilfoid: While most boxing experts are picking Floyd Mayweather Jr. (45-0, 26 KO’s) to positively clown Amir Khan (28-3, 19 KO’s) on May 3rd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, Showtime analyst Steve Farhood isn’t one of them. He feels that Khan has the hand speed and the fighting style to give the 36-year-old Mayweather a great deal of problems in this fight. Farhood sees Khan as using the same fighting style that Oscar De La Hoya used in his loss to Mayweather back in 2007.

“I think Khan has a style, being tall, being rangy, and being very fast, that could give Floyd a lot of trouble,” Farhood said via hustleboss. “The blueprint for how to fight Floyd was created by Oscar De La Hoya years ago. Rangy, tall guy with a good jab. That’s the way Khan will fight. I don’t think Floyd’s a big enough puncher anymore. I don’t think it’s as easy fight as many people think.”

I disagree 100 percent with Farhood. De La Hoya may have fought competitively with Mayweather back in 2007, but he also had a much better chin than Khan has today, so he was able to take Mayweather’s shots without falling down on his backside the way that we’ve seen from Khan in the not too distant past. What happens when Mayweather clips Khan with one of his big left hooks?

I just can’t imagine Khan staying on his feet after getting hit with a hook that he doesn’t see coming from Mayweather. If former lightweight Julio Diaz was able to put Khan on the canvas, then you can bet that Mayweather will be able to do the same thing again and again and again until the referee chooses to stop the fight.

In watching the Mayweather-De La Hoya fight, I got the sense that Mayweather carried De La Hoya in that fight out of respect for him. I got the feeling that Mayweather fought the past his prime De La Hoya in the reserve mode by keeping it in 1st gear for pretty much most of the fight until shifting into 2nd gear during the 2nd half of the fight. Mayweather didn’t shift into 3rd or 4th gear in that fight, because if he had he would have clowned De La Hoya. I honestly think Mayweather carried De La Hoya for the entire 12 rounds of that fight. And that’s why when I see people saying that the blueprint to beat Mayweather is to follow what De La Hoya did to him, I think it’s laughable.



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