By Scott Gilfoid: Amir Khan (28-3, 19 KO’s) says he’ll be speaking with former two-division world champion Ricky Hatton to find out ways that he can beat former WBA welterweight champion Luis Collazo (35-5, 18 KO’s) in their match-up on May 3rd in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hatton has a 12 round decision win over Luis Collazo from 2006, so Khan hopes to be able to get some good ideas from him in how to solve the Collazo puzzle.
“It’ll be good to speak to Ricky. He’s been in the ring with him [Collazo], and he’s going to know exactly what to do in how to beat him,” Khan said to BoxNation. “He’s a good opponent at 147. He’s a big 147lb fighter. He’s ranked quite highly in the world rankings. People are looking forward to finding out what I’ll be like at 147. I’ll be much stronger at this weight, because I won’t be killing myself to make weight. I’ve beaten every southpaw I’ve faced.”
I’m honestly not too sure how useful Hatton will be in giving advice to Khan about how to beat Collazo, because Hatton’s win over him from 2006 was a highly controversial one where many boxing fans thought Hatton was given a gift. Collazo staggered Hatton in the 12th round, and dominated him in at least 7 of the other rounds of the fight. I thought Hatton won 4 of the rounds, but even those rounds were very close and could have easily gone to Collazo based on his cleaner landing shots, and due to his good counter shots that he was landing.
Collazo was making Hatton pay for each punch he landed in that fight and making him look really bad. However, Hatton was the A-side fighter with the name, so I wasn’t surprised at all when Collazo was robbed of the decision. He was pretty much in the tough situation where he was going to need to KO Hatton in order to win the fight, and when that didn’t happen, I knew that Collazo wasn’t going to be given the win over him. Hatton was too popular and the judges weren’t going to give a decision to someone with no fan base like Collazo.
The only thing that Hatton did in the Collazo fight was to get in close and throw body and head shots. If this is the advice that Hatton gives to Khan, then he’s going to get him knocked clean out, because Khan doesn’t have an inside game. Collazo is the much superior inside fighter, and he’s also got a lot of power in close. When Collazo fought Hatton in 2006, he wasn’t the puncher that he is now.
Collazo has developed more punching power as he’s gotten older, and he’s much more dangerous than he was when he fought Hatton. The Collazo of 2014 would have knocked Hatton out in 2006 within 3-4 rounds, because Hatton would have been right in Collazo’s power alley early in the fight.
Khan is going to get nailed by one of Collazo’s big hooks if he gets in close enough for Collazo to land. Even if Khan stays on the outside, he’ll get hit with a big left hook when he throws his wild flurries that he likes to throw. I hope for Khan’s sake that his trainer Virgil Hunter has taught him to stop throwing flurries, because Khan has been hurt in the past when he’s charged forward trying to impress the crowd and the judges with his hand speed. The only way you can fight a guy like Collazo if you’re a fighter with a weak chin like Khan is to use your jab and throw only one punch at a time to keep from getting hit with his counter shots.
I expect Khan to revert to form after a round or two, and start throwing his flurries. He’s obviously been told by his trainer Virgil Hunter to not throw flurries, but Khan will slip back into his old ways once the action heats up. We saw Khan following Hunter’s instructions at the start of his bouts against Carlos Molina and Julio Diaz. But after a couple of rounds in each of those fights, Khan fell back into his old ways and started throwing flurries, and getting nailed with some vicious shots. After that, Hunter was basically wasting his time in trying to tell Khan anything, because he was just going out in each round and doing the same thing by throwing flurries instead of following Hunter’s instructions.
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