By Scott Gilfoid: It’s not usual for fighters to improve after they’ve been sitting idle for a year the way that Amir Khan (28-3, 19 KO’s) has since his last fight in April of 2013, but Khan believes the time off from boxing has made him a better fighter. In truth, Khan has been out of the ring for a lot longer than just one year when you factor in that he hasn’t fought a quality fighter since his loss to Danny Garcia in July of 2012.
Khan beat Carlos Molina and a past his best Julio Diaz since then, but the fight against Diaz looked more like a loss, and Molina was just some little 2nd tier lightweight fighter that Golden Boy Promotions found in order to stop Khan’s 2-fight losing streak. Diaz, 34, wasn’t a top ranked welterweight, so you can’t count him as a real fight for Khan. As far as I’m concerned, Khan’s last two fights have been glorified sparring sessions instead of real fights against the guys he should have been fighting.
“You’ll definitely see a different Amir Khan coming into this fight because I’ve had a lot of time to work on things, and work on new strategies, and also work with my trainers,” Khan said. “I’ve always been an exciting fighter, and I think that’s always going to be there, you know, in my blood.”
I don’t see Khan being better for having been out of the ring for nearly 2 years, but if he wants to try and paint that as reality, then let him believe it. No one is better coming off of a 2 year layoff, no one.
Khan faces Luis Collazo (35-5, 18 KO’s) on May 3rd on the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Marcos Maidana fight card. This is an opponent that is either going to be really good or really bad. Collazo has looked dreadful in the past in losses to an older Shane Mosley and Freddy Hernandez. All I know is that Collazo hasn’t faced anyone that I consider a good fighter since his loss to Andre Berto in 2009. Collazo did beat Victor Ortiz last January, but I don’t consider Ortiz to be a good fighter at this point in his career with him coming off a near 2-year layoff and consecutive losses to Josesito Lopez and Mayweather.
Collazo’s win over Ortiz said absolutely nothing due to all the negative factors that were in play for Ortiz at the time. Now, if Collazo had actually beaten a high quality fighter in the last year or two, I would say he’s a good opponent for Khan, but that’s not what he’s done. As such, I just see the Khan-Collazo fight as a situation where Khan is being matched up against a guy who is a safe fight for him. I’d like to think that Collazo is a good opponent, but if you look at the HUGE gap between his loss to Berto in 2009 until now, where Colllazo fought nothing but guys that were C level fighters, I don’t see him as being a worthy opponent for a fight against Khan. I don’t rate Khan as being a good fighter, but at least you’ve got to put him in with someone who has been fighting world class opponents in the past 5 years, and we haven’t seen that from Collazo.
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