By Chris Williams: Light hitting former IBF light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (27-3, 5 KO’s) is promising to knockout WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (22-1, 16 KO’s) next week on May 15th at Madison Square Garden. If this wasn’t Khan, who has a brittle chin, I wouldn’t give Malignaggi much of a chance to accomplish it. However, the 23-year-old Khan has already been knocked out once in his career and has been dropped a number of times in his short career by mostly light punchers.
Malignaggi would seem to be a live threat to take Khan out if he can land something hard on Khan’s chin. On East Side Boxing’s On the Ropess program, Malignaggi said “Amir Khan is going to get knocked out next Saturday night – I promise you. You have my word on that. Amir Khan is going to get stopped next Saturday. I don’t think I’ve ever had a dislike for an opponent more than I have for this guy…The arrogance this kid has coming into this fight is a little bit too much now. I think he’s been misinformed. I think he thinks he’s been fighting at a world class level. I think he’s been reading too much of his press.”
Khan has faced very little opposition in his career. Malignaggi has that correct about him. Khan’s best opponents have been Marco Antonio Barrera, Breidis Prescott, Andriy Kotelnik and Dmitri Salita. That’s basically it. Only the Kotelnik fight stands out, because he was probably the best of the entire bunch. Khan handled him without too many problems by using a lot of movement against him to neutralize his weapons. It helped Khan that Kotelnik wasn’t much of a puncher, but still there was a danger there for Khan if he had decided to stand and trade with Kotelnik all night. Khan instead chose to jab and move all night long, rarely stopping for more than a second or two to throw a punch.
Malignaggi doesn’t think Khan is a great fighter, calling him “decent.” He also doesn’t think that Khan is all that fast of a puncher either, saying “He tries so hard to be fast and that gives up on a lot of other things by trying to be fast. If you’re fast, you should come out fluid. You shouldn’t have to get so stiff to throw fast punches and if you notice that’s what Amir Khan does…You’ll find out Saturday just how limited he is after what I do to him.”
Khan is looking to be a huge star in the boxing world, specifically in the United States. Malignaggi, more or less, was chosen as a sacrificial lamb for Khan to look good against and perhaps stop in front of a national television audience in the U.S. on HBO. The Malignaggi fight is Khan’s coming out party and he has to impress to get new fans to take an interest in him.
Hardcore boxing fans are already well familiar with Khan and many of them dislike Khan for a passion for some reason. Khan has one of the best trainers in boxing in Freddie Roach, who sees Khan as a future mega star in the same mold as Manny Pacquiao. It remains to be seen whether Khan will ever get to the level of Pacquiao. Right now, Khan needs to get by Malignaggi on the 15th and then start stepping it up against better fighters.
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