By William Mackay: Trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr. wasn’t in the least impressed with WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan’s victory over Marcos Maidana on December 11th at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mayweather Sr., the father of Floyd Mayweather Jr., thought that Khan fought a poor fight and should consider himself lucky that the fight wasn’t 15 rounds instead of only 12. Khan barely survived the last three rounds of the bout, taking one big shot after another while holding onto one of Maidana’s arms much of the time but not losing points from the referee for the constant holding.

In an article by writer Percy Crawford at fighthype.com, Mayweather Sr. had this to say about Khan’s performance against Maidana: “Man, I thought Amir Khan looked like dog s–t. Everybody talks about how Freddie Roach [Khan’s trainer] made him a better fighter. Freddie Roach made him a worse fighter. He caught that guy with a nice shot early [referring to the body shot that Khan knocked Maidana down with early in the fight], but after that, all he did was f–king run. He was running for his life in there and he’s lucky it wasn’t a 15 round fight like the old days or you know what would have happened to him? He would have been stopped.”

I agree with Mayweather Sr. Khan fought a poor fight and blew his chance after hurting Maidana with a body shot. Instead of following up with more body shots in the following rounds, Khan gave up completely on throwing to the body for some reason and decided to run like mad for the rest of the fight. It wasn’t a Mayweather-esque type fight from Khan. Indeed, it was like watching one of Paulie Malignaggi’s old fights. I give Khan credit for fighting well in the opening round when he was throwing to the body, but Khan forgot this success and only head hunted and ran for the rest of the fight. with all the running he was doing, it took away any power that Khan might have had on his shots because he was often punching without planting his feet before throwing.

It was as if Khan didn’t trust his own chin that he could take one or two of Maidana’s big shots while throwing his own. As it turns out, Khan may have known his chin better than others did, because when he did finally slow down for a second from his running, he got caught with a hard right hand from Maidana in the 10th and was badly staggered. The remainder of the fight was all Maidana, as he pummeled Khan for the last three rounds while Khan mostly held and was benefited by the referee separating him from Maidana at crucial parts of the fight.

Had this fight been a few rounds longer, I have no doubts that Maidana would have finished Khan off, because Khan had nothing left and his legs looked like rubber. They were gone from all the running he had done in the fight, and he looked like he never fully recovered from the right hand that Maidana clipped him with.