By Kieran Gallagher: Amir Khan (23 -1, 17 KOs) Vs. Marcos Maidana (29-1, 27 KOs) at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on 11th December is an explosive match-up that is probably the most compelling fight of 2010. Its significance transcends the mere entertainment value of the two marquee combatants involved; indeed the real intrigue lies in the fact that this fight should definitively answer the questions which have been hovering over Khan since at least 2008. Is he the glass-jawed, hype-job his many detractors claim? Or will he prove that Maidana, like Paul Malignaggi, Dmitriy Salita and Andriy Kotelnik before him, are nothing more than footnotes on his rise to ultimate pound-for-pound glory?

Currently it is impossible for a journalist to write an article about Khan without mentioning his suspect chin and I’m not about to reinvent the wheel here. Since his comprehensive first round knock-out to the limited Breidis Prescott in 2008, his chin has remained the metaphorical elephant in the room. It’s difficult for any fighter to shrug off the taint of a first round knock-out but let’s not forget Khan was also wobbled by the light-punching Willie Limond and the game-but-ordinary Michael Gomez.

Khan and his camp have posited various theories as to why their man is no longer chinny, such as he was ‘top-heavy’ and is now properly proportioned and he was weight drained trying to make 135 lbs. Normally this kind of talk could be dismissed as typical promoter guff but fight fans should consider that Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach is nobody’s fool. Manny Pacquiao’s retirement doesn’t look too far off and Khan is clearly being primed to succeed him as the jewel in the Wild Card crown. Would Roach be grooming Khan for greatness if he had a glass jaw?
Roach himself believes technical deficiencies were largely responsible for Khan’s rubber legs.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, he said: “It wasn’t so much that his chin is suspect but that his balance wasn’t right for absorbing punches and he was so impatient to land the knock-out that he left himself open. Now he is much lighter on his feet and he lets his speed and his skill set him for the KO without walking on to big punches.”

The beauty of this matchup is that Khan is going in against a noted knock-out artist – probably the foremost puncher in the light-welterweight division. The whole glass jaw debate will finally be laid to rest – one way or another – once Maidana lands one on the button. That’s where the real intrigue lies. In every other regard this fight is a total mismatch, Khan is capable of boxing rings around him all night. The little Argentinian will be chasing shadows while he eats leather-after-leather but all it could take is one Hail Mary bomb from Maidana and that’s all she wrote.
I have always been of the persuasion that a bad chin is the one weakness in a boxer that cannot be improved but, on the other hand, I believe it is too soon in Khan’s career to write him off as a glass-jawed wonder. Time will tell. As for Maidana, he looked very ordinary in his last fight against journeyman DeMarcus Corley and there are also question marks over his lifestyle and conditioning. To paraphrase Khan, he looked ‘pudgy’ at the press conference, as if he may have had a few too many chorizos. We know from fighters like Roberto Duran and Ricky Hatton that this approach will come back to haunt you sooner or later. So all things considered, I don’t fancy his chances. Maidana gets very ragged by the mid-point of fights and Khan should pick him off with increasing regularity and eventually stop him late.
The thing is though, with Khan and that chin you just never know…