By Isobel Castillion: Will WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan’s chin hold out in future bouts while he faces faster and more skilled opponents than Marcos Maidana, cleans up the division, unifies titles and becomes a multi-weight world champion, which he has expressed an interest in lately?
Lets study the evidence.
Before the Maidana fight everyone was worried sick that as soon as Khan was hit on the chin by the powerful Argentinean, Khan, who had a reputation of having a chin made of peanut brittle, would collapse and possibly need immediate medical attention and a repeat of the dreaded Breidis Prescott fight would be a strong possibility.
When Khan was eventually hit hard in the tenth round by Maidana everyone was so astounded that he didn’t immediately hit the deck with a thud, they’ve hailed this as progress.
Maidana who doesn’t have the greatest of stamina looked to be exhausted in the later rounds of the fight having spent the evening running round in circles chasing after Amir’s chin. Khan certainly knows how to tire his opponents out. Unfortunately for him it was really a question of time before he was caught with a bomb because although running backwards is a form of defence, its not effective once you have worn yourself out and become sloppy and careless and your concentration is shot. This is certainly a flaw that future opponents including Paul McCloskey will be looking to exploit. Also Khan’s speed diminishes significantly as he gets tired and without his speed he really doesn’t have any great advantage in a fight. Maidana was just waiting for that moment to plant his bomb which saw khans legs go to jelly.
So how much has his punch resistance improved? At a lower weight that shot would likely have decked Khan but his legs were still struggling to cope so putting on weight definitely seems to have improved the chin issue but what happened from that point onwards?
Maidana wasn’t at his fastest and Khan was still managing to roll away from some of the punches.
Khan also introduced another new form of defence, turning his back. Maybe him and his trainer Freddie Roach have been practicing this move in the gym? Maidana was desperately trying to knock khan out when Khan would simply turn around and face the other way. Maidana then kept firing and was met with and aggressive and angry referee Joe Cortez and warned for punching to the back of the head but if Khan hadn’t turned his back to Maidana he would have been punched to the front of the head but Khan still managed to get completely battered by Maidana.
WBC/WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley who is fast skilful and aggressive may be able to knock Khan out with ease. A punch that you don’t see coming will be harder to absorb. But Amir Khan seems to think he has already beaten Bradley as he talks the talk about unifying titles and cleaning up his weight division.
Bradley is confident that he can still beat Khan after seeing Khan v Maidana and said that Khan still has flaws which he could exploit. He can certainly take advantage of khans sluggish defence that saw him nearly knocked out. You can’t run forever from someone who is skilled at cutting the ring off and faster shots fired in an unpredictable way could send Khan straight to the canvas. Then all this talk of being the pound-for-pound (p4p) great will make Amir look silly and as though he thought because he had beaten Maidana and just stayed standing, with the help of some dubious actions, that he thought he could achieve anything in the boxing world.
I’m afraid Khan has some serious flaws in his game plan and a smart fighter will know how to pick Khan apart especially in those later rounds as exhaustion sets in and the speed grinds to a halt. You see Khan’s survival in a fight has become dependent on him being the better athlete but at the end of the day, it’s a fight not a fifty meter sprint and his new style is leaving him open to all kinds of exploitation.
Khan who used to be thrilling to watch in his early days, or be it fighting total no hoper’s and losers has become a play it safe guy which has turned a lot of fans off as they look to more exciting fighters who have other qualities but he still hasn’t got over his defeat and Prescott to where he feels he can be an exciting fighter ever again. That’s a shame. It was all very well goading Maidana by pointing to his chin, smirking and raising his arms when he had obviously been hurt but Khan came across as immature behaving like that and it reminds me of the immaturity which made him run into Prescott, makes me wonder if he has the character or the technique to be an all time great?
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