Collazo not worried about Khan’s hand speed

By Boxing News - 04/04/2014 - Comments

khan34By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA welterweight champion Luis Collazo (35-5, 18 KO’s) recognizes that his May 3rd opponent Amir Khan (28-3, 19 KO’s) will have an advantage in hand speed in their scheduled 12 round fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Collazo, 32, isn’t worries about Khan’s speed, as he realizes that he’s moving up in weight to the full 147 lbs for the division, and he sees this as being a potential problem for him.

“This fight is the one that will get me back to the top of the welterweight division,” said Collazo to Sportinglife. “He’s [Khan] got great speed, but he’s stepping up to my weight and it doesn’t bother me. I’ve been the underdog all my life.”

Collazo has the power to make Khan pay if he overreaches and gets inside his punching range. Throughout his career, Khan has shown a bad habit of throwing multiple combinations, and this has left him vulnerable to getting hit a lot by his opposition. While most fighters are content to throw a two-punch combination, Khan looks to throw 3-5 shots, and that’s where he gets into problems because he doesn’t have the chin to take the counter shots that he’s getting hit with.

Without the punch resistance needed to fight in this manner, Khan leaves himself vulnerable to getting knocked out each time he throws his shots. Khan’s power isn’t enough to knock his opponents out with just 1-2 punches. He needs to throw lots of shots to score a knockout, and that puts him in situations where he’s getting hit.

Collazo knocked out Victor Ortiz in the 2nd round last January, and the power he showed in that fight was in some ways even better than the power that Marcos Maidana displayed in knocking Ortiz out in 2009. Collazo previously wasn’t known for his punching power, but he seems to have gotten stronger recently, and that could be a problem for Khan if he doesn’t fight defensively.

Khan’s trainer Virgil Hunter has been trying to get him to throw fewer shots, and focus on just landing 1-2 punches at a time, but in Khan’s last fight against Julio Diaz a year ago, he was still throwing punches in bunches, and getting hit with left hook counter shots. Collazo is a better puncher than Diaz, and if he’s able to connect with his shots the way that Diaz did, Khan won’t last long.



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