By Chris Williams: British lightweight contender Amir Khan (20-1, 15 KOs) sounded a little deluded and like he has a mini chip on his shoulder in a recent interview in which Khan said, “I love proving people wrong. Lots of boxers and so-called experts said I’d never come back the same, but I’ve come back better.” Khan, 22, is referring to his 1st round knockout loss to Colombian Breidis Prescott in September 2008, a fight which Khan foolishly rushed out and tried to trade shots with the bigger and more powerful Prescott.
As a result, the weak chinned Khan was almost immediately laid out with a left hook from Prescott. Khan never recovered from the knockdown and was quickly put down for a final time after getting blasted with more left hooks from Prescott. The scary part about the fight was that Khan was staggered in the opening seconds of the fight not by a power punch but by a jab from Prescott.
Before the Prescott fight, Khan had a history of having a weak chin and had been knocked down several other times by C and B class opposition. Since the defeat from Prescott, Khan has picked up Freddie Roach as his new trainer and has been built back up somewhat by having two spoon fed opponents put in with him, beating D class fighter Osin Fagan and a badly faded, undersized Marco Antonio Barrera.
The Barrera fight is hard to call an actual victory for Khan, since the fight ended early in the 5th due to a bad cut that had opened up on the forehead of Barrera. Khan was dominating the fight at the time of the stoppage, but the 35-year-old Barrera was practically fighting with only one eye working because of the huge amount of blood that was leaking down Barrera’s face into his left eye.
It’s hard to tell what effect, if any, that Roach has had on the style of Khan. Amir never was short on talent after turning pro in 2004 after winning a silver medal in the Olympics that year for Britain. Khan’s problems have always been his lack of a chin. Roach may be a brilliant trainer for guiding the career of Manny Pacquiao, but he’s been much less successful with other fighters that he’s trained.
Khan may end up being one of the lesser successful fighters for Roach unless he can build up Khan’s ability to absorb punishment. Khan says that he will “no longer fight with my heart. I fight with my head.” Obviously, this is something that Khan is hoping to do from now on, but it remains to be seen if he can do that.
Khan is a great fighter, but he’s not so great that he can get through a 12-round bout against top fighter without getting hit hard a number of times. On June 27th, boxing fans will get to see how good Khan’s chin is because he’s going to be moving up in weight to take on World Boxing Association light welterweight champion Andriy Kotelnik for his title.
It seems rather convenient for Khan that he chose Kotelnik, arguably the weakest of the light welterweight champions rather than the much tougher Timothy Bradley, Juan Urango and Kendall Holt. However, even though Khan has picked an easy mark in Kotelnik, it’s questionable whether Khan’s fragile glass jaw can hold up against Kotelnik. Let’s hope so for Khan’s sake, because he may be in need of another new trainer if he gets beaten again.
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