By William Mackay: John Breen, the trainer for unbeaten light welterweight contender Paul McCloskey (22-0, 12 KO’s), believes that WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (24-1, 17 KO’s) is just as vulnerable as he was previously thought to be in terms of Khan’s ability to take head shots.

Khan has had a reputation for having a weak chin long before he was blasted out in one vicious round by Breidis Prescott in 2008. Khan changed trainers after that blowout loss by signing up American trainer Freddie Roach to oversee his development. Roach has made some inroads to helping Khan stay on his feet in the ring by having him move a lot more and throw shorter combinations than he once did.

However, as we saw in Khan’s last fight against Marcos Maidana, Khan is still vulnerable to head shots. He very likely would have been knocked out in the 10th round of that fight had he not been able to hold on or have the action broken up so often by referee Joe Cortez.

In an article at the Belfast Telegraph, Breen said “A lot of people seem to feel that Khan has improved but the only thing that I can see where he has developed is in his defense. That has improved since he went to America to train with Freddie Roach. But, having watched a lot of his fights you can see that he is still vulnerable. In his last fight he almost got stopped by Marcos Maidana and if he had been stopped by the referee in the 10th, nobody would have argued.”

I thought Khan should have lost the Maidana fight, either by having it stopped in the 10th or by Maidana blasting him out after Khan was penalized for holding. The only improvement in his game that I can see is his foot movement. And that won’t help him beat the better fighters. He’s going to have to actually fight, and I don’t think his chin will stand up to the pounding.