By William Mackay: Timothy Bradley must be feeling really confident right now after seeing how bad WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (25-1, 17 KO’s) looked tonight in beating Paul McCloskey (22-1, 12 KO’s) by a 6th round technical decision at the M.E.N. Arena in Manchester, England. The fight was stopped in the 6th round after McCloskey was cut above his left eye from a head butt.
It was very similar to Khan’s head butt of Marco Antonio Barrera. The doctor quickly stopped the fight rather than letting it continue, which seemed fitting for this bout because both McCloskey and Khan looked like amateurs. A lot of missed punches and really bad boxing. Right now, I see Bradley cleaning up on Khan and making easy work of it. The final judges’ scores were 60-54, 60-54 and 60-54, all for Khan.
Like in the Marcos Maidana fight, Khan threw a lot of fast combinations with zero power on them. They were just flashy punches thrown with too much speed and much of the time McCloskey either blocked them or moved his torso for them to miss. Khan moved around a great deal but looked clumsy on his feet and was hit often by McCloskey.
Khan looked really energized and excited in the fight, as if he were fighting someone actually good rather than a fighter that he picked out himself. As far as entertainment goes, it was a big disappointment. This wasn’t an entertaining fight because McCloskey was too limited and had no power or hand speed. Khan dominated but looked weak, and not like a top fighter.
If Khan wants to squeeze in another easy payday, he could always give McCloskey a rematch. Who knows? Maybe the British public will buy it on PPV and Sky might pick it up. Don’t know why they would because tonight’s fight was just awful to watch.
Khan seemed like he was more interested in trying to show off his hand speed than he was about just winning through hard work. He tries too hard to look good and ends up looking the opposite.
I think Freddie Roach needs to sit down with Khan and have long hard talk about what Khan is capable of doing at light welterweight. If Roach lets Khan fight Bradley next, I see the gravy train ending with that fight. Khan gets beaten by Bradley and then will have to go back to square one and start fighting the domestic level fighters again. Maybe Sky will show Khan’s comeback fights where he takes on one 2nd tier fighter after another, but I kind of doubt after this recent fiasco with Khan leaving Sky for Primetime.
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