Khan vs. Collazo: Amir’s moment of truth

By Dr.SweetScience - 04/06/2014 - Comments

khan88By: Jeff Krugler/Dr.SweetScience: Amir Khan will be facing Luis Collazo on May 3rd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Are we supposed to believe that beating Collazo will prove anything substantive to the case of Khan? Furthermore, were we at any point seriously supposed to believe that Khan was a formidable opponent for Floyd Mayweather? I’m not sure which question is a bigger joke.

At one time, Khan looked like a promising prospect in the eyes of many, but as time has revealed that was all smoke and mirrors. What we are left with is the ‘Khan Man’ who managed to look good in carefully selected fights until his one dimensional style was exposed. By the way, what was all the hype about? Do you remember? There had to be some fights that put this guy on the map right? So what were they? Who did he really beat? Let’s take a deeper look into that and refresh our memories.

There’s a series of ‘names’ on Khan’s resume that led folks to believe he was the real deal. Those names include; Zab Judah, Marcos Maidana, Paul Malignaggi, and Marco Antonio Barrera. Woah! What a list right? Names of guys who at one time or another have all had great success, future Hall of Fame candidates, and currently active contenders. Don’t let the print fool you though, names mean little under their individual circumstances.

For instance, Zab ‘Super’ Judah wasn’t very ‘Super’ anymore by the time he came around to fighting Khan, having lost to every top tier fighter he faced beforehand (Miguel Cotto, Mayweather, Carlos Baldomir, DeMarcus Corley, Kostya Tszyu). If you look at what he’s done since the case makes itself even further. Barrera was also well past his prime having fought all his greatest bouts, and taking his greatest beatings long before he ever faced Khan. Don’t forget either that the fight was stopped due to a major cut to the head of Barrera caused by a clash of heads in the first round which greatly impaired Barrera’s ability to see as it gushed down his face the entire time. Malignaggi, meanwhile, has always been a ‘B’ class fighter with insufficient power, and not enough natural ability or overall skill to overcome the better competition he’s faced including Khan himself. All that Khan proved in beating Malignaggi was that he was a better ‘B’ class fighter, with a better work rate, and that speed kills.

The most curious case here would be Maidana who he had a legitimately great fight with. Khan started fast, Maidana had trouble with the speed, eventually started to figure him out when it was too late, and Khan went on to a unanimous decision. That was three years ago, however, and I think it’s safe to say Maidana has improved overall as a fighter since then while Khan has regressed. It might be even easier to say at this point that should they face each other again, most would bet Maidana would come out the victor. Point is Maidana wasn’t the fighter he would become, and Khan hadn’t yet to be exposed for the fighter he really is or rather isn’t.

The Lamont Peterson fight really was an exposure of Khan, it really did show him for what he is and isn’t whether Peterson tested positive for some kind of PEDs or not. It revealed the glaring weaknesses of his style, Peterson showed exactly how to beat it, and it took away the one real weapon Khan had all along, his speed of hand and foot. Once that was made a virtual non-factor it was merely a game of ‘Cat and Mouse’. We saw that Khan doesn’t possess great defensive skills, that his power was mostly a myth, we saw how one dimensional his whole game plan/style really is, that he isn’t as smart a fighter as some of his contemporaries, and in that fight you saw his self-confidence evaporate once things weren’t going completely his way.

In other fights he showed an ability to handle tough situations, but always with things largely under his control. In this case it became apparent he was no longer in control and someone had him pegged. As a result he didn’t know what to do and while he was ferociously active, it was mostly in vain. Peterson simply kept the pressure on and Khan couldn’t think of anything to do but try and push him away and continue doing the same things that weren’t working for him in this fight. If not for the sheer volume of punches he threw in that fight, mostly to stop the onslaught by Peterson, it wouldn’t have been nearly as close.

Following that debacle with the destruction he faced against Danny Garcia and the con was fully exposed. He could have continued his usual ‘run n’ gun, stop and go’ style for the most part, all it needed was a couple tweaks here and there and you could have made him much better. Instead he looked lost against Garcia, trying to figure out how to be a more straight forward technical fighter. He tried to out box a better boxer in fear of his previous tactics being a greater failure than before and it blew up in he and Freddie Roach’s faces. It was a meaningless change that ultimately led to a great embarrassment. Some of this is not Khan’s fault, some of it is.

Obviously they wanted to make sure he wouldn’t fizzle out down the stretch so he wasn’t on his bicycle like we’d seen before, which was a large mechanism of what defense he had. Instead we saw him coming straight forward and straight back most of the time, standing right in front of Garcia only really using his lateral movement to reset and go straight forward again. The hand speed was obviously still there but not nearly as effective as a result of the other changes, it made Garcia’s job easy and the outcome inevitable if not predictable.

All that, followed by his two most recent fights has shown that the ‘King Khan’ was mostly just a con, not an elite fighter, not nearly top of the food chain. Being put down by Julio Diaz certainly doesn’t give any credence to the argument, nor does beating him or the undersized Carlos Molina, another low ‘B’ grade fighter. Then to think that he or anyone else believes he would stand a chance against the likes of Floyd Mayweather is absolutely preposterous. Based on what? If Danny Garcia was too smart and technical for him, what do you suppose Mayweather would do to him? I’m pretty positive he’d knock Khan out in stunning fashion. We already know he doesn’t have a great chin, doesn’t possess a great defense, and doesn’t have the solid boxing skills to beat upper level fighters. So what good will beating Luis Collazo do to make his case? Nothing. Collazo isn’t anything special, never was, thus beating him is nothing special should Khan manage to do it. The bottom line is, it’s just another part of the con for the ‘Khan Man’. Just another useless name to point to and say “I beat him” and use it as some poor justification to take on opponents out of his depth.



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