By Scott Gilfoid: Amir Khan linked to an article from his twitter site today that suggests that he really doesn’t have a glass jaw despite the perception by a lot of fans that he can’t take a good shot. The article talks about how Mike Tyson was stopped 5 times in his career, Ricky Hatton halted 3 times, Arturo Gatti stopped 5 times and Kostya Tszyu. Those fighters were beaten by very good opponents over the course of their long careers. Khan was blasted out by Breidis Prescott, Danny Garcia and almost halted by Marcos Maidana.
The thing that goes against Khan, however, is that he’s been hurt not just by the guys that stopped him. He’s been dropped a number of times in his career, and badly hurt against guys that shouldn’t have been able to hurt him. Julio Diaz, a fighter that is arguably 10 years past his prime, was able to knock Khan down last April, and be lost a fight that you can really have called either a draw or a victory for him. I thought Diaz beat Khan. Then there was Khan’s fight against Marcos Maidana in 2010.
Khan was staggered in the 10th round in that fight, and a lot of fans feel that he would have been finished off by Maidana if not for referee Joe Cortez getting into the way of Maidana over and over again in the last 9 minutes of action. Khan doesn’t count that fight as a knockout, but you pretty much can because it’s very difficult to see Khan surviving the last three rounds had Cortez simply stood out of the way when Maidana was finishing Khan.
Fighters can sometimes lose their ability to take a hard shot after a brutal knockout loss. It doesn’t matter that they were able to take a hard shot earlier in their career. What matters is they lose their ability to take punishment, and their careers go downhill quickly from that point on.
There’s major questions about whether Khan has reached that point after his knockout loss to Danny Garcia in 2012. Khan hasn’t fought anyone after that loss that could properly test his chin to see if his punch resistance is still intact, but it’s incredibly worrisome that a fighter like Julio Diaz was able to knock Khan down and have him staggering around the ring like a wino several times in the last part of the fight. That tells me that Khan’s punch resistance, which was arguably never great to begin win, may have deteriorated even further after his stoppage loss to Danny Garcia.
What I would have liked to have seen was for Khan to fight a rematch with Maidana before getting a fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. on May 3rd. By proving that he could beat Maidana without controversy and take his best shots, Khan would then have proved that his chin is still intact and that he deserves the Mayweather fight on May 3rd. But without Khan having done that, all we have to go by is his 2-2 record in his last 4 fights, and that’s a God awful record for someone to get a Mayweather fight, isn’t it?
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