by William Mackay: WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (23-1, 17 KO’s) can’t wait to get in the ring and start sparring with Manny Pacquiao (51-3-2, 38 KO’s) to test whether he’s improved since the last time Khan sparred with him two years ago. In an article at the dailystar.co.uk, Khan says “I haven’t sparred with Manny since I got beat by Breidis Prescott and I did really well against him then. I was quite inexperienced but I’ve gone onto to win the world title and fought some big names, so i think sparring with him this time will be a big test for me. I’m not going to go in there and try to beat him and send a statement. Me and Manny are good friends, but I want to see how good I am against the world’s best pound-for-pound boxer.”

I don’t know how to break this to Khan, but I think Pacquiao was really taking it easy on him from the video I saw of them sparring. It looked like Pacquiao was fighting at 25%, appearing to intentionally take it easy on Khan because he had just been knocked out badly by Prescott and was now signing on with Freddie Roach. I could be wrong, but it looked to me like Pacquiao wasn’t even trying, whereas Khan looked like he was going all out to try and paste Pacquiao with combinations and hard shots.

I was surprised Pacquiao let Khan land as many punches as he did in the sparring session without coming after him and loading up on power shots. I think Pacquiao will probably take it easy on Khan again in sparring, but it would be interesting to see if Pacquiao decided to ramp up and go all out. I think Khan would get staggered, knocked down and would likely have to stop sparring with Pacquiao. I’d really like to see this sparring though. Pacquiao might ruin Khan if he spars at full capacity.