Prescott faces McCloskey in WBA light welterweight eliminator on Saturday

By Boxing News - 09/08/2011 - Comments

Image: Prescott faces McCloskey in WBA light welterweight eliminator on SaturdayBy Scott Gilfoid: Breidis Prescott (24-2, 19 KO’s) dreams of getting back in the ring with Amir Khan and stroking him out of there like he did three years ago in a 1st round knockout. Prescott made it looking taking candy from a baby beating Khan.

On Saturday night, Prescott will be taking a stroll over to the Odyssey Arzena in Belfast, Northern Ireland to knock out local fighter Paul McCloskey (22-1, 12 KO’s) in a WBA light welterweight eliminator bout.

Ideally, a win for Prescott should land him a title shot against WBA Super World light welterweight champion Amir Khan. However, Khan has made it clear over and over again that he wants no part of Prescott again. Khan has made up his mind – or at least that’s what he says – that he would beat Prescott in a rematch, and that’s not worth the time to fight him. Khan would rather take on the #13 ranked WBA contender Lamont Peterson rather than the higher ranked #6 ranked Prescott.

It doesn’t make sense, because no matter how you look at this fight, Prescott is the better option for Khan. Prescott is ranked higher than Peterson, has a previous win over Khan, and boxing fans want to see Khan fight Prescott again. All Peterson has going for him is a recent win over Victor Cayo and a gift draw against Victor Ortiz last year. Oh yeah, he also doesn’t have a lot of power. I guess that makes him a good option for Khan instead of Prescott.

McCloskey’s too weak and slow to beat Prescott. The UK boxing fans are overwhelming backing McCloskey to win, and seem to be putting their reasoning behind their choice on Prescott’s loss to Kevin Mitchell in 2009. For a lot of UK fans, that was the last time they ever saw Prescott fight, and assume that’s how he’ll be fighting against McCloskey on Saturday. I can’t blame them for picking McCloskey. If the last fight I saw of Prescott was his bout against Mitchell, I think I might give McCloskey a chance to win, even though I thought Prescott landed the much more telling blows in the Mitchell fight and deserved to get the decision.

However, a lot of UK boxing fans haven’t seen how Prescott has changed his style of fighting in the past year, and is more of a boxer now than a plodder like he was before. On Saturday night, McCloskey’s UK fans will get their eyes wide open and realize how in the dark they’ve been about Prescott when he goes out and boxes circles around McCloskey before knocking him out in the 5th or 6th rounds. They’ll realize only then how wrong they were about Prescott and his talent, and will likely become one of his biggest supporters after the fight.



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