By Matt Stein: Moments after Saturday’s fight between Amir Khan (20-1, 16 KOs) and Marco Antonio Barrera (65-7, 43 KOs) at the M.E.N. Arena, Manchester, Lancashire, Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach said “He’s [Khan] maturing now; maturing more and more. He’ll be my next world champion for sure.” Khan, 22, had just finished dominating the 35-year-old Barrera and ultimately stopping him near the end of the 5th round due to a cut stemming from a 1st round head butt between the two fighters.
Make no mistake, Khan was the superior fighter on that night, superior in hand speed, combinations, power and movement. Indeed, Barrera struggled throughout the five rounds to land his slower shots against the quicker Khan.
However, I doubt seriously that Khan will be Roach’s next champion as he says. For that to happen, Khan would have to beat someone tough like Ali Funeka, Juan Diaz, Edwin Valero or Paulus Moses. Beating any one of those fighters would be a tough accomplishment for the 22-year-old Khan, because unlike Barrera, each one of these fighters are young, in their prime, and are legitimate lightweights, not a transplanted featherweight like Barrera was going into the fight.
Khan says that he’s being helped immensely by his sparring with Manny Pacquiao, which is probably true up to a point. However, when Barrera nailed Khan with a left hook at the end of the 2nd round, staggering Khan, it showed that skill can take you only so far. As it turns out, this was one of the few times that Barrera landed in the fight and it was more than a little troubling to see Khan’s knees buckled by a weak puncher like Barrera.
Khan’s improved defense was partly the reason for him being hit so little, but also there was the fact that Barrera was fighting with only one good eye, with the other blinded with blood from his bad cut on his forehead from round one on.
Also, Barrera’s lack of hand speed and size likewise made it tough for him to land punches. Beating a short, small, old, slow and weaker fighter like Barrera may prove some that Khan is good enough to beat someone that he has multiple advantages over, but it doesn’t prove that he can beat a talented lightweight like Valero, Diaz, Funeka or even Breidis Prescott, all of which I see knocking Khan out once he’s put in with them.
I think Khan is fooling himself if he believes that a win over Barrera equates to him being good enough to beat a top lightweight in the division. Yeah, Barrera was ranked highly – number #1 in the WBO – at the time of their fight, but I saw that as being ranking he didn’t deserve. He was ranked highly solely for his accomplishments in the past as a featherweight and super featherweight instead of what he had done as a lightweight, which was one over a journeyman and another win by a 3rd round disqualification.
Beating Barrera due to a cut proved nothing and was more of a waste of time for Khan than anything else. The win was tainted by the cut in the first round, thus handicapping Barrera for the next four rounds until it was eventually stopped because of the massive amount of blood leaking from it.
Even with Barrera fighting at a tremendous disadvantage, he was still able to stagger Khan with a left hook at the end of the 2nd round. Who knows what would have happened had Barrera not been cut in the 1st, and had been able to fight for a full 12 rounds. Chances are, Khan would have run into another big punch from Barrera at some point and possibly taken out.
We’ll never know, of course, but to say that Khan will be Roach’s next champion due to Amir’s victory on Saturday night seems a little misguided if you ask me. Beating a cut, short, old fighter like Barrera isn’t the same thing as being a top lightweight or one of the young knockout artists in the lightweight division like Prescott.
If Khan really wants to accomplish something, he’ll go immediately after Prescott and try to avenge his 1st round knockout loss to him. If Khan could do that, then I’d be a lot more impressed with him and could give him a chance – not a good one – against one of the top lightweights in the division, but I can’t do it based on his shallow win over Barrera.
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