By William Mackay: Ricky Hatton feels that WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (26-1, 18 KO’s) has a decent chance of beating undefeated welterweight Floyd Mayweather Jr if they end up tangling next year. Hatton points to Khan’s style, which he thinks would work against Mayweather, and the fact that Mayweather is getting older. Hatton thinks these two areas would give Khan a good chance of getting a win over Mayweather.
Hatton said this to talksport.co.uk: “Floyd Mayweather is an exceptional talent, but Amir Khan is getting better and better with every single fight…Amir’s getting better and Floyd’s getting older, so it’s not beyond the realms of impossibility…Khan is a little bit more patient and his style might be more suited to Mayweather.”
I totally disagree with Hatton. I see Khan as having taken on only two good fighters in the past three years – Breidis Prescott and Marcos Maidana. One of them knocked him out, and the other almost knocked him out. The rest of the guys that Khan has been matched up against – Oisin Fagan, Marco Antonio Barrera, Andriy Kotelnik, Paulie Malignaggi, Dmitriy Salita, Zab Judah and Paul McCloskey – were too weak, too small, too old or too slow. I see those fights as being ones where Khan has been put in with guys he can beat and not matched against guys that would give him problems like Lucas Matthysse, Mike Alvarado, Devon Alexander, Timothy Bradley, Robert Guerrero and rematches with Prescott and Maidana.
I don’t think Khan is getting better. I think his management is getting better at matching him against guys he can beat. If you select an old and shot fighter like Zab Judah, Khan is going to win every time. If you pick a slow guy with no power and little in the way of offensive skills like McCloskey, Khan is going to do well. But if you match Khan up against Prescott and Matthysse, two fighters that have power aren’t slow, old and weak, Khan looks like he’s showing zero improvement. In other words, match Khan with weak, slow and old guys, he does well. Match him against a power puncher, and he doesn’t do well. It’s about good match making for Khan.
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