By William Mackay: Amir Khan watched WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward’s fight this past weekend against Carl Froch and noted that Ward was moving around and fighting defensively, as he had done a week before in a losing effort against Lamont Peterson. Khan obviously isn’t happy with the stick he received for fighting defensively when Ward thus far hasn’t received much of any criticism for the way he fought.
Khan said on his twitter account “For the haters: Ward is on his back foot and moving around. So does that mean he’s a b**ch or he’s running scared? I didn’t think so.”
I don’t know how Khan can compare the way he fought against Peterson with how Ward fought against Froch last night. Khan fought in a much more defensive manner compared to Ward. Khan looked to be literally running at times and just trying to escape the pressure from Peterson. There was a sense of panic on Khan’s face and he couldn’t hide it. In contrast, Ward was attacking Froch for most of the fight.
There were obviously moments in each of the round where Ward would back away under pressure from Froch, and move a little. But he was running around the ring, and he also wasn’t holding or shoving in the manner that Khan was against Peterson. Ward did fight on the inside but he was mostly looking to land shots, not to bend Froch’s head back or put him in a headlock so he couldn’t punch on the inside.
Ward isn’t getting criticism because he wasn’t just looking to shut down Froch’s offense by grabbing or running like Khan was doing against Peterson. It’s sad that Khan can’t objectively sit down and accept that what he was doing looked amateurish. How he can see Ward as fighting similar to him is baffling. It’s like an amateur painter seeing a Rembrandt painting and believing he’s just as good.
Khan seems incapable of clearly seeing what he did wrong in the Peterson fight, and unless he can step outside his own shoes to objectively look at his own faults, he’s not going to learn from the fight. He needs Freddie Roach or someone to sink some reality into his head about all the mistakes he made in the Peterson fight.
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