By William Mackay: Showing terrible punch accuracy, mediocre boxing skills and poor stamina, WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (25-1, 17 KO’s) defeated his hand-picked challenger Paul McCloskey (22-1, 17 KO’s) tonight by a 6th round technical decision. What can you say about Khan? He looks like he’s getting worse rather than better.
Khan spent the better part of tonight’s fight jumping in, throwing flurries, missing most of the shots, and then jumping out and getting nailed while on the retreat. He looked tired, confused and not even close to being in the same league as WBC/WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley, who he wants to fight next. Maybe Khan can improve enough not to get beat in that fight, but I’m not betting on it.
I think we saw Khan for what he is tonight – a fighter that can throw fast punches but can’t do much more that. He just looks uncoordinated, like he doesn’t know how to really fight. If that had been Bradley in the ring with him tonight rather than the hand-picked offensively limited McCloskey, Khan would have had his backside handed to him on a silver platter. And I’m not sure that s Khan would have won this fight hand the cut not occurred.
I think he may have dodged a bullet tonight. This fight just shows you how vulnerable Khan is and how little time left he has at the top. His 15 minutes of fame is about to end. And to think to think that’s he’s been talking about fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr. and unifying title at welterweight and junior middleweight.
Looking at Khan struggle to beat a mediocre fighter like McCloskey, one can only feel sorry for Khan and his deluded dreams. Khan looked like a sick version of Joe Calzaghe tonight with his fast flurries, missed punch and porous defense. It was ugly watching him fight.
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