By William Mackay: Former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan was in attendance to witness Carl Froch’s win over IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute last Saturday night in Nottingham. The victory really helped to motivate the 25-year-old Khan for his July 14th clash against WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Khan said to Sky Sports News “It was brilliant. Carl’s performance…He just didn’t give Bute a chance. It was just a great performance…He hurt him with every shot. From the beginning, he beat him to every punch. I’ve never seen Carl start so quick.”
Froch did start fast, but that came about after he got hit with some hard left hands in the 3rd round. Froch was basically fighting for survival at that point because if he didn’t flurry on Bute the way that he did, he’d have likely been knocked out at some point in the fight. Rather than letting Bute pot shot him all night with hard left hands and right hooks, Froch turned up his offense all the way and ended up getting a quick 5th round knockout win.
Khan faces Danny Garcia in what could be a replay of Khan’s loss to Lamont Peterson last December. Although he’s not as experienced as Peterson, Garcia is a good pressure fighter and he’ll be looking to land a lot of punches against Khan on July 14th. Garcia isn’t going to just let Khan hit and run away. Garcia will fight hard enough to stay on top of Khan. What we saw in Garcia’s last fight against Erik Morales wasn’t a good indication of how good Garcia is, because Morales wasn’t active for the full three minutes in many of the rounds. This meant that Garcia was able to coast and do just enough to get the win. But against Khan, Garcia will pick up his game and take it to a higher level because Khan will force the fight to take place at a higher level.
Khan said “Definitely” when asked if he was motivated by Froch’s win.
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