By Scott Gilfoid: Light welterweight Amir Khan’s career has turned completely around since his 1st round knockout loss to Breidis Prescott last year. Khan, 22, has rebounded from that defeat with wins over Oisin Fagan, Marco Antonio Barrera and Andriy Kotelnik. The later victory gave Khan the WBA light welterweight title, which is something for him to be proud given his young age.
There are a lot of boxing fans and experts who are crediting Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach for the miraculous turnaround for Khan’s career. Indeed, if you were to glance at what Khan has achieved with victories over Barrera and Kotelnik, it makes Roach look like a minor genius for what he’s done with Khan.
However, what on the surface looks like a complete revamping of Khan’s career may not actually be the reality of the situation. Although Khan has won his past three fights since being destroyed by Prescott, he hasn’t faced a big puncher since that time.
You certainly can’t include an older 35-year-old, undersized Barrera or the soft punching Kotelnik in a list of knockout punchers. Roach is saying that Khan may be one of the ten best fighters on the planet right now, but I don’t buy it. I like Khan as a fighter and want him to succeed in his career, but I don’t see him as anything more than what he was when he got destroyed by Prescott.
In other words, Khan has great boxing skills – fast hands, decent power, great movement and good stamina – but he has major problems taking a heavy shot from a fighter with good power. It looks like Roach and company are keeping Khan away the bigger punchers on purpose to avoid another knockout loss.
But I can’t consider Khan as having been rebuilt or improved by Roach in any way shape or form if he’s not being tested against big punchers like Marcos Maidana or Prescott. There’s talk of Khan fighting Dimitry Salita or possibly Timothy Bradley in the near future. Both of those guys are good fighters, maybe even better than Khan in the case of Bradley.
But neither of those fighters are big punchers and I can’t see any value of Khan being put in there with them right now. Khan has little choice but to fight Salita, since he’s his mandatory challenger, but I’m not going to crown Roach as the greatest trainer that ever breathed if Khan ends up beating Salita.
The same goes for his wins over the ancient Barrera and the powder puff punching Kotelnik. That only proves that Khan could beat a fighter with no power, something he was able to do quite nicely before Roach ever said a word to him. I’ll be ready to believe Khan as being rebuilt if he can beat Maidana, Prescott, and some of the other huge punchers in the lightweight and light welterweight divisions.
And you know what? It probably isn’t going to happen. They won’t be putting Khan in with a big puncher, not now or any time soon. And that’s why I can never consider Khan as being anything more than what he was before – a fighter with exceptional skills but with a glass chin.
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