By Sean McDaniel: Once again, WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan’s poor stamina was exposed to the light day, this time in his controversial 6th round technical decision victory over Paul McCloskey (22-1, 12 KO’s) at the M.E.N. Arena, in Manchester. Khan and McCloskey bumped heads in the 6th, opening up a tiny cut over the left eye of McCloskey.
The referee and doctor examined the cut, and the fight was stopped. The judges scored it 60-54, 60-54 and 60-54 for a points win for Khan. McCloskey, who may never get another shot like this again, was understandably deeply upset by the stoppage and for good reason. Khan looked totally gassed and seemed to be getting weaker. McCloskey said this: “I don’t know what the referee and the doctor were thinking. My corner could have stopped the blood, no problem. But they weren’t given a chance. Amir was knackered and was getting stronger.”
Indeed, McCloskey did appear to be getting stronger at the end of the fight, and it is more than a little disappointing that he wasn’t given a chance to have the cut worked on in between rounds. As for Khan, he may have dodged a bullet by the referee stopping the fight because he looked pretty ragged at this point in the fight. Khan likely would have still won the fight, as he had won the six rounds of action.
However, Khan likely would have worn down even more and ended up looking really bad in winning. The last thing that Khan could afford is looking bad in this fight, because he was hoping to impress American fans to get them excited about watching a unification bout between him and Timothy Bradley in July.
The quick stoppage may have come a little bit late to prevent Khan from looking bad in this fight, but he probably would have looked much worse if they had let it continue.
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