By Scott Gilfoid: in a an article on Times Online, the new trainer for lightweight Amir Khan (18-1, 14 KOs), Freddie Roach is working on trying to toughen up Khan’s jaw, so that he can experience less knockdowns and knockouts in the future. Khan, 21, up until recently was thought to be a can’t miss future lightweight champion, but unfortunately he ran into a big left hook from Colombian knockout artist Breidis Prescott (20-0, 18 KOs) who flattened Khan in a 1st round TKO on September 6th. The loss was a humiliating one for Khan, but it was something that some boxing experts saw coming a long ways away given Khan’s prior knockdowns by Willie Limond and Michael Gomez, neither of which are particularly huge punchers.

Even before that, Khan had been stunned a couple of times by the light-hitting fodder that had been served up to him while building his impressive 18-0 record. In the pursuit of trying to fix Khan’s latest problems, his trainer Jorge Rubio was let go, and a new trainer – Roach – was brought in. However, Roach’s ideas on how to toughen Khan’s chin, according to the Times, appears a little primitive if not insane sounding. Apparently, Roach has picked up some techniques from one of his fighters, Manny Pacquiao, who previously was having problems with taking body shots. A part of the training, which reportedly derives from Thai training, involves hitting the waist of Pacquiao with a stick to toughen his waist.

However, it’s difficult for one to imagine how Roach will be able to use the same technique with Khan’s weak chin, for the problem with taking shots to the head, it seems, is more of a matter of the brain rather than a muscle or pain issue. Being hit in the head repeatedly in training, whether it be by an open hand or by a punch, would seem to make any preexisting neurological problems involving the brain even worse, not better. The sad fact of it is, Khan is probably stuck for life with his weak chin, and no amount of training of his jaw, neck of chin will change things.

In other words, you can either take a shot or you can’t, and historically there hasn’t been any fighters that have been shown to overcome this problem. However, Khan has a lot of things other fighters don’t have, namely incredible speed, excellent power and extraordinary foot work. That to me is where Roach needs to be working with Khan on, not wasting his time by trying to change his chin, which is probably beyond the control of mortal men.

Under the best circumstances, Roach should be trying to fix Khan’s leaky defense as well as his tendency to try and slug with too many of his opponents. Khan often fights way too aggressively, thinking offense first and defense last, and leaving himself open for counter shots from his opponents. While he’s going all out for knockouts, he’s vulnerable to getting hit like he did against Prescott.