By William Mackay: Former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan came across as a little cocky in his interview with Ifilmlondon recently, bragging about how he’s constantly needing new sparring partners in training for his July 14th fight against WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Khan said to Ifilmlondon “We’re changing so many sparring partners for this fight, because we’re getting stronger and stronger and we keep hurting them. We need new guys. We’re going through Mexican guys, Russian guys. There are so many different fighters coming in. They’re good fighters, and I’m feeling a huge difference, especially with the training I’m doing…You’re going to see a new Amir Khan in this next fight, because I’ve had so much time to train and watch videos for this fight.”

Yeah, Khan will be okay sparring guys, but once the headgear comes off and he’s fighting Garcia instead of a 3rd tier sparring partner, Khan could be in big, big trouble if he gets his chin tapped. Beating up over-matched sparring partners that are brought in to sharpen – and not beat up Khan – is one thing, but against the real thing without headgear.

I don’t know. We saw Khan running for the hills against Lamont Peterson in his last fight when he started tasting Peterson’s power. We saw Khan staggering around the ring like a drunk in his win over Marcos Maidana in 2010, and we saw Khan knocked cold in one round by Breidis Prescott in 2008. Beating up sparring partners mean absolutely nothing.