By Chris Williams: Amir Khan (21-1, 15 KO’s) is being showered with praise since beating paper champion WBA light welterweight champion Andriy Kotelnik last Saturday night by a 12 round unanimous decision at the M.E.N. Arena, in Manchester. Khan used his speed, movement and some good combinations to outclass the slower Kotelnik, who just looked too one dimensional to contend with what Khan was offering up.
Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach, however, noticed a lot of holes in Khan’s game, pointing out correctly that Amir had problems with the pressure that Kotelnik was putting on him in the fight.
Khan took some big shots from Kotelnik, especially late in the fight when Kotelnik began to wear Khan down with steady pressure. I don’t want to be the one to spoil the party for Khan’s fans, but Kotelnik isn’t a pressure fighter and isn’t very good at putting pressure on opponents.
Kotelnik is more of a basic fighter who likes to work slowly behind a jab and fights at a slow pace with an opponent that is either standing in front of him or is coming to him. With Khan moving a great deal in the fight, Kotelnik was forced to transform himself into a pressure fighter and as such, he didn’t do a very good job of pressuring Khan.
This is why I’d suggest that Khan and his followers not get so excited about this victory. This was a limited fighter and not one good at dealing with fast punchers or having to instantly evolve into a pressure fighter. Khan will have to face the experience of dealing with a pressure fighter when he eventually faces someone like Marcos Maidana in the not too distant future.
Compared to the easy time that Khan faced in his fight against Kotelnik last Saturday, Khan will probably feel like he stepped into a meat grinder. It won’t be easy and unless Roach teaches him some more tricks, Khan may get stopped again.
That won’t be good, because it will make Roach look like less of a genius and will burst the bubble that Roach has recently formed because of his success with Pacquiao and now Khan in the past year. I think Roach is a great trainer, but I don’t how much more that he can get out of Khan as for teaching him how to handle pressure.
Khan moved about as well as a young 22-year-old could and I can’t see that improving regardless of how hard Roach trains him. Khan moved constantly in the fight, but yet he was still forced to stand and trade with Kotelnik when he would catch up to Khan every now and then. That’s part of boxing.
No matter how much coaching that Roach gives to Khan about handling pressure, sooner or later it comes down to whether Khan has the chin to take major league shots from punchers like Maidana, Mike Alvarado and Breidis Prescott.
Roach will be trying to get more and more out Khan to try and teach him to avoid getting hit like he was against Kotelnik, but eventually Roach will start getting diminishing returns because a fighter can run only so much without tiring himself out like Khan did late in the fight or turning off the boxing fans who pay to watch his fights.
It may be that Khan handled pressure about as good as he could on Saturday and will probably fight similarly against other opponents in the future. However, if it’s a huge puncher like Prescott and Maidana with a high pressure attack, I don’t know that the training will be enough for Khan to pull out a victory over them.
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