By Sean McDaniel: Amir Khan could have easily raked lightweight contender Kevin Mitchell (31-1, 23 KO’s) over the coals for his 3rd round knockout loss to Michael Katsidis last weekend at Upton Park. Instead, Khan consoled Mitchell, saying “I have heard his preparation and training wasn’t fight and he had a lot of problems beforehand,” in an article at The SunThat was a massive fight for him that would have made him a big star, especially in the States because Katsidis is a big name. But I’m sure he will learn from that and bounce back stronger.”

Mitchell made a mistake of trying to trade with the bigger and stronger Katsidis in the 3rd round and ended up walking into a hard left hook that dazed Mitchell. He still might have survived the round had Mitchell not made his second mistake in the round by trying to slug with Katsidis instead of clinching and holding on. Mitchell may have thought that he could back Katsidis off by landing some hard shots. However, Katsidis smelled blood and wasn’t going to easily back. He continued to poor in punch and punch, backing Mitchell up to the ropes and hurting him with another hard left hand that left Mitchell out on his feet and defenseless.

Mitchell turned sideways to the ropes and was attempting to cover up when the referee stepped in and stopped the bout. Had the fight continued, there’s little doubt that Katsidis would have knocked Mitchell down with one of his shots. He clearly made a big mistake in trying to punch with Katsidis but made his problems even worse by making the rookie mistake of trying to fight while hurt.

Khan says “For him [Mitchell] to come back, I think he needs to beat another big name, someone like John Murray in Britain and that will put him back up where he needs to be. I think it won’t be too hard for him and he is still young. He needs to get focused, keep winning and make no more mistakes. “ Murray does sound like a good opponent for Mitchell. He needs to take on a decent fighter like Murray, and learn from his mistakes. I hope Mitchell isn’t put in with a lot of useless fodder for the next year or so because that’s a waste of time for him. He needs to be taking on better fighters so that it’s not such a shock when he’s matched against a guy like Katsidis. In this case, I think it was too huge of a jump to go from guys like Breidis Prescott and Ignacio Mendoza to a guy like Katsidis. Mitchell just didn’t seem ready to fight someone as talented as Katsidis at this point in his career.

Mitchell had been making comments about Khan before his fight with Paulie Malignaggi last weekend, saying that he thought that Khan was facing an easier fighter than him. Mitchell had hopes of getting a fight with Khan in the future if he would have beaten Katsidis. Now that dream is pretty much shattered, at least for the time being until Mitchell builds himself back up.