Khan Sacks Rubio: Is There Any Trainer Alive That Can Fix Khan’s Glass Jaw?

By Boxing News - 09/20/2008 - Comments

rubio4434.jpgBy Jim Dower: According to The Sun, Amir Khan has fired his Cuban trainer Jorge Rubio after only one fight, this being his 1st round knockout loss to Breidis Prescott on September 6th. The knockout was quite unexpected as Khan was thought to have been ready to take on a fighter in the class of Prescott, who was personally selected by Rubio to face Khan. When things didn’t turn out like Khan had expected, it was thought by some that Rubio wouldn’t be lasting too much longer. Although Rubio, a former Cuban amateur coach who specializes in teaching defensive skills, only worked with Khan for a short and never really had much of a chance to teach him anything before Khan’s bout with Prescott.

After being stopped by Prescott, Khan had come to the rescue of Rubio, saying that he was going to keep him as a trainer despite the loss. However, it looks as if he had a change of opinion since then. In fairness to Rubio, he wasn’t given much of a chance to work with Khan and teach him much of anything in the short period of time that he worked with him. Khan, a fighter with extraordinary speed and offensive skills, has defensive problems that make him susceptible to even weaker punchers. Given the fact that Khan had already been dropped twice, including in his bout prior to his fight with Prescott by Michael Gomez, Khan really needed to continue fighting softer opposition rather than a devastating puncher like Prescott.

If there was something that Rubio could be blamed for, it’s his choice of wanting to put Khan in with a fighter as dangerous as Prescott. He was the one apparently who recommended that Khan fight him, but he did so because he felt that Khan had the skills to beat him. If anything, Rubio can hardly be blamed for overestimating Khan’s talent, because at the time of the fight there were legions of boxing experts who saw Khan as a future champion. Rubio obviously knew talent when he saw it and probably figured that Khan, with his outstanding speed and power, he could easily defeat the much slower Prescott.

After all, Rubio had seen Prescott fight up close when he watched him narrowly defeat Cuban Richard Abril, a fighter trained by Rubio, in June and he perhaps figured that Prescott was very beatable. Indeed, if a fighter like Abril, who has almost zero power and much slower hand speed than Khan, could come close to beating Prescott, Rubio can’t be blamed for assuming that Khan would have little trouble beating him. If I was Rubio, I probably would have thought the same thing as him, and might have picked Prescott as well for Khan.

This was a fighter that Khan should have been able to defeat if he had only focused more on boxing him rather than going right at him and trying to trade shots with him at close range. The loss was merely a byproduct of a Khan trying to trade power shots with a knockout artist. Unless you got a chin made of iron and are used to fighting punchers like Prescott, he had no business going right after him and trying to get in the trenches with him.

Khan is reportedly looking to sign up American trainer Freddie Roach as his new trainer, who by the way will be Khan’s fourth trainer since turning professional in 2004. For a fighter with only four years under his belt, that’s an alarming amount of trainers and indication that something isn’t quite right with Khan. Roach is a fine trainer, who is especially good at teaching fundamentals, although he’s not known for being a trainer whose specialty is teaching defense. If that’s what Khan is looking for, he probably needs someone like Buddy McGirt or Floyd Mayweather Sr., two of the better known trainers that focus on teaching defensive skills.

Khan’s problems may be beyond the capabilities of any trainer, however, because he may not have the chin to make it to the next level. He suffered a terrible knockout at the hands of Prescott, who punches very hard, but as I mentioned earlier, this wasn’t the first time that Khan has been down in his career.

The problem is, he will face additional fighters that can punch almost as hard as Prescott, as Khan moves up the latter against better competition and if he can’t take a hard punch without going down or being knocked out, there’s nothing that any trainer – no matter who it is – that can help him with that problem. They may be able to help a little by teaching him to guard his head, to block more punches and to move more, but they can’t teach him how to take a hard shot. That’s Khan’s problem alone and he’s going to have to discover the answers for himself to that issue.



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