Khan and Thurman dominating performances at Las Vegas MGM Grand

By matthias - 12/14/2014 - Comments

Amir Khan vs Devon AlexanderBy Matthias Predonzan: The performance that last night Amir Khan put together against Devon Alexander, was the best of his career. After his defeat against Danny Garcia and the poor performance in his tuning bout against Julio Diaz, it looked like Khan career could have been at its end.

Many were expecting him to lose against the solidity of Luis Collazo but in that occasion Khan displayed all his class, controlling his opponent for 12 round and winning convincingly an UD.

He did not take any risk, clinching his contender every time he needed to do it and for this reason he was criticized by some critics and fans.

On the other end, his fight against Collazo was a real top performance in the eyes of boxing purists.

This time he did another step in the direction of the perfect fight.

Khan won against Alexander virtually all the rounds, without the need to clinch so much to control him.

In the first round he immediately counter punched Alexander very effectively and the effectiveness of this first exchanges won the respect of Alexander who was then reluctant to pressure him convincingly to not take the risk to get countered out.

Then Khan dominated all the rounds with his perfect timing, carrying series of 3-4 punches with amazing speed and then getting out of range to avoid any retaliation from Alexander who frustrated, run after him, never able to cut the ring because Khan’s footwork tonight was really good.

Personally I believe that only Khan can defeat Khan. His last 2 performances proved this point. Khan cannot stay toe-to-toe with tough punchers. He has not a great power but mostly he has not a great chin. But he has all he needs to win against anyone if he is fighting smart and using his huge boxing skill.

Khan showed great ring generalship and great maturity; he didn’t faded toward the end of the fight, as happened too many times before in his career and looked in the MGM Grand’s ring as the best welter weight in the business to fight one of the two giants of the class: Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather.

Keith Thurman was also able to deliver a great performance against a contender almost unknown to the casual fans of boxing but very solid and experienced.
It was the style that Thurman was able to display that was a bit of a surprise. He decided to fight extremely smart, showing a great footwork, superior speed and timing and basically counter punching Leonard Bundu for the whole fight.

He also, as Khan did against Alexander, won virtually all the rounds but was also able to knock down Bundu in the first round.
Even if Bundu recovered well, the power of Thurman was always at bay, probably preventing Bundu from attacking with the usual pressure.

Ring generalship was, for these two fights, clearly always in control of Khan and Thurman who sooner or later will reach the top of welter weight division, in the post Pacquiao and Mayweather era.

With the delight of the fans of the art of boxing.



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