By William Mackay: Former Amir Khan conqueror Breidis Prescott (23-2, 19 KO’s) is waiting to see if Khan will fight him next in April nezt year in the UK. For fans who don’t remember Prescott, he was the fighter who annihilated Khan in one round with a serious of brutal hooks in their fight in September 2008. Instead of trying to avenge the defeat, Khan has steered clear of Prescott, fighting only light punchers until recently when he barely escaped with a win over knockout artist Marcos Maidana last week.
I had the fight scored a draw, as Khan was battered in the last three rounds of the fight and didn’t do enough to prove that he was the better fighter.
In an article at fighthype.com, Prescott, with his great wisdom, pointed out what I had noticed about Khan as well by saying that Khan seems to unravel when he gets hit hard and “not know what to do.” Prescott thinks Khan needs to work on his defense in a big way. I don’t agree with that. I think Khan’s defense can’t really get any better than it is right now. As it is, he’s running laps around the ring for 12 rounds in trying to protect his fragile. I don’t know how Khan can protect him chin any better than he’s doing right now. He doesn’t get hit that much.
If you look at the Maidana fight, Khan rarely got hit until he was hurt in the 10th round. It was at that point where he seemed to fighting without any direction at all, throwing punches back at Maidana despite being badly hurt and on the verge of being knocked out. This allowed Maidana to land a lot more punches than he might have otherwise done had Khan been thinking clearly. He says he wasn’t hurt, but if that’s the case why was he fighting without thought? It’s like he gets tagged and then instead of holding on, he decides to fight back and gets tagged again.
In the Maidana fight, Khan was able to stay on his feet somehow. Frankly, I think the referee Joe Cortez was a factor in Khan surviving. It’s not that Cortez was trying to help Khan, but rather he just happened to pick out spots where Khan was taking brutal punishment on the inside while stupidly holding onto one of Maidana’s arms.
By separating Khan and Maidana, Cortez allowed Khan to get back in the center of the ring and get separation from Maidana and that enabled Khan to start running like he had been doing early in the ring. When Maidana caught up to Khan again and started pounding him in close, Cortez again stepped in and unwittingly may have saved Khan by separating him from Maidana.
It’s highly doubtful that Khan will choose Prescott for his next fight. I really don’t see Khan ever facing Prescott again. I think he’s a bad match-up for Khan because of his power, long arms, looping punches and height. Now that Prescott has been beaten a couple of times by other fighters since the Khan fight, it gives Khan the excuse not to have to fight him. Instead, look for Khan to fight someone like Lamont Peterson, who was totally dominated in a loss to Timothy Bradley last year and who looked terrible in fighting to a 12 round draw with Victor Ortiz in his last fight. I don’t understand why Khan would face Peterson and not someone like Prescott, when both of these guys have been beaten and one of them holds a knockout win over him.
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