By Scott Gilfoid: While most boxing fans believe Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) is up the creek without a paddle in his fight next month against the much heavier, stronger, younger and arguably more talented WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) in their scheduled fight on May 7, former two division world champion Ricky “Hitman” Hatton believes that the 29-year-old Khan has the style to defeat Canelo.
Hatton thinks that if Khan can punch, move, throw combinations and not stand still for any length of time, he could pull off the upset. However, Hatton acknowledges that the 25-year-old Canelo has gotten a lot better since losing to Floyd Mayweather Jr. three years ago in 2016, and he feels it’s going to be a real hard task for Khan to beat Canelo.
“It’s a very good fight,” the former world welterweight champion told BoxNation. “They are two of the biggest names in boxing. It’s a little bit of a surprise with the weight, I’m really looking forward to it. Amir has the style to beat him but it’s a real big ask. He’s got to try and move and hit him hard and not stand there, use his speed and combinations.”
Khan has the style to beat Canelo, yes. He doesn’t have the chin, toughness or the discipline to beat Canelo though in my view. All we can go on is how Khan has looked in past fights against pressure fighters in his fights against Marcos Maidana, Danny Garcia, Julio Diaz, Lamont Peterson, Chris Algieri and Briedis Prescott. All six of those fighters were putting pressure on Khan the entire fight.
Algieri wasn’t a pressure fighter before he faced Khan, but for that fight, he changed his style completely and applied constant pressure and surprisingly almost beat him. Of those six fighters, Khan beat four of them, which isn’t bad. I personally had Khan losing to Julio Diaz. I thought Julio Diaz was royally robbed in the Khan fight. I also thought Khan would have beaten Peterson if he’d listened to the referee and stopped shoving Peterson each time he would come forward looking to throw body shots.
Maidana came close to beat Khan, and likely would have knocked him out if he’d had a referee that was less hands off than the one working the fight Joe Cortez. He was constantly getting in the way of Maidana working on the inside after he had hurt Khan in the 10th. That was perhaps the strangest fight I’ve ever seen before, because it looked like Cortez was putting himself in between Khan and Maidana much of the time after Maidana had hurt Khan in the 10th. Maidana was having total problems trying to get past Cortez at times to finish Khan off. Like I said, if it had been a referee that was less hands off, Khan would have been knocked out in that fight in my view.
This is the biggest fight of my life! May 7th Las Vegas #CaneloKhan @HBOboxing @boxnationtv 👊🏽
— Amir Khan (@amirkingkhan) April 11, 2016
“If he can pull it off it would be one of the best in British boxing history,” said Hatton about Khan beating Canelo. “Canelo improved so much from the Mayweather fight. People wrote him off but he’s come back better than ever.”
I don’t think Canelo has improved that much since the Mayweather fight. I mean, I thought Canelo lost his fight against Erislandy Lara in 2014. I had his fight against Miguel Cotto last November scored as a draw. Canelo’s only non-controversial wins since the Mayweather fight was against James Kirkland and Alfredo Angulo. It’s no big deal that Canelo beat Kirkland and Angulo. Those are easy marks, and the fights were won on Golden Boy Promotions match-making. Canelo is still vulnerable, but I don’t think he’s vulnerable against a welterweight with a history of having a fragile chin like Khan.
This should be an easy fight for Canelo if he applies enough pressure to get Khan out of there. If Canelo makes the mistake of trying to box with Khan like he did against Mayweather, then Khan has a chance of winning this fight. Canelo seemed to fancy himself as a boxer after his win over Austin Trout in 2013. Canelo mostly boxed Trout in the second half of the fight, as he spent much of the last five rounds with his back against the ropes after getting hurt by a body from Trout in the 7th.
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