By Scott Gilfoid: Maybe I’m one of the few writers that see Amir Khan’s (20-1, 16 KOs) 5th round stoppage win over the cut up Marco Antonio Barrera (65-7, 43 KOs) as being an empty one, because the victory was an empty gesture. Khan was faster and better than Barrera, showing that he could beat Marco after he was cut from a head butt. Many people already though that Khan would be too fast for Barrera going into the fight and it was hardly revealing that he was able to dominate the smaller Barrera.
If this was a better fighter than Barrera Khan was facing, someone like Juan Manuel Marquez or Breidis Prescott, Khan would have been flattened just like before. I’m not even guessing on that one. You could see the way that Khan reacted adversely after getting hit with the only hard punch in the entire five round fight with Barrera, a left hook in the 2nd that staggered Khan badly.
It was a good punch, there’s no question, but it wasn’t in the league of the kind of shots from fighters like Marquez, Prescott or Ali Funeka. Heck, I could name a dozen top tier fighters that could punch harder than Barrera in the lightweight division and if Khan had been hit by any one of them, I don’t see him recovering from it.
What surprised me was how convinced Khan was afterwards that he was back from his 1st round knockout loss to Breidis Prescott, as if the victory over a pretty much faded 35-year-old Barrera had healed Khan’s glass chin overnight. Barrera ends up getting his head cut in a head clash with Khan in the opening round and is then forced to fight with cut that would have probably caused the stoppage of the fight in most places in the world.
Not on Saturday night, though. I would have liked to have seen Khan try to fight with a similar cut himself for five rounds and see how well he does. My guess is he would be like wounded duck, running around and trying to avoid getting hit again. At least Barrera gave a good try before the fight was eventually stopped by the ringside doctor in the 5th.
I hope Khan enjoys his victory while he can still can, because from the sounds of it, he and his trainer Freddie Roach have plans on Amir challenging for a title in the near future. I can’t wait for that to happen, I really can’t, because as soon as Khan steps it up against a quality fighter and not a compromised older fighter, you can forget it. Khan has no business fighting any champion from what I’ve seen of him.
It was sad to see him so delusional about the bigger picture of what had just taken place. Instead of being able to put the victory in perspective, seeing that he had beaten a smaller, older fighter without much power, Khan seemed to jump to the conclusion that he was ready to shut up his critics.
I think Amir needs to sit down and have a good look at his fight with Barrera one more time, and then immediately take a look at footage of the better fighters in the division, some of them that he’ll possibly be fighting if he’s at all serious about wanting to fight for a championship.
If he goes into this with his eyes wide open, he’ll see that he’s better off avoiding fighting for major title and sticking to the local level where the going is much easier. I wouldn’t recommend him challenging for the European title either, because even they might be too.
If his chin was better, I’d say go ahead and take one of the lesser titles but it isn’t and he’d only succeed in getting knocked out again. Khan’s chin is like a fragile egg. If you protect it by putting in a carton and keeping it away from being hit hard, it won’t break, but if you jar it all of a sudden, it’s going to go to pieces on you.
That’s why Khan needs to forget about challenging for a title and stay clear of any of the champions for another five to seven years. Hopefully, as he ages his chin might get a little better somehow. I doubt it, but maybe it might.
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