By William Mackay: Golden Boy promotions CEO Richard Schaefer says Amir Khan’s next fight in December will be for a world title against the winner of Golden Boy’s 140 lb. tournament. Khan will be facing one of the following fighters: Zab Judah, Danny Garcia, Lamont Peterson or Lucas Matthysse.
The chances are high that Khan will be facing Garcia or Matthysse. That’s bad news for Khan because he looked positively awful tonight in barely beating welterweight Julio Diaz (40-8-1, 29 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision in their catch-weight fight at 143 pounds at the Motorpoint Arena in Sheffield, UK.
You can make a strong argument that the referee helped Khan more than his new trainer Virgil Hunter because Hunter seemed unable to give Khan any advice that worked for him. Khan was knocked down in the 4th, and hurt in rounds 8 through 11 from punches that clearly wobbled him.
The referee let Khan get away with pulling down on Diaz’s head and doing a lot of holding, especially after Khan was hurt. At point the referee stopped the action when Khan was hurt I the 8th to give Diaz a long warning about talking to Khan while fighting.
The timing of the warning was bad, and the funny thing is it came right after Khan had grabbed Diaz by the back of the head and pulled him forward in the way that Khan likes to do a lot against his opponents.
Khan won the fight by the scores 114-113, 115-113, 115-112.
You have to give Golden Boy credit for not wanting to put Khan in with another soft opponent for his next fight in December, but you have to wonder how well Khan will do against the likes of Matthysse or Garcia.
The way that Khan struggled against Diaz seems to suggest that Khan won’t match up against well against big punchers like Garcia or Matthysse. Those guys are much harder punchers than Diaz and they’re not just able to punch hard with their left hooks. They have powerful right hands and they would be a nightmare for Khan. Julio Diaz isn’t in his prime anymore and he left his prime behind 8 years ago in the lightweight division. A lot of boxing fans aren’t aware of the fact that Diaz isn’t an actual contender and was just an older fighter that Golden Boy Promotions dug up for Khan to fight. They didn’t want to put Khan in with a contender, so they found Julio Diaz and Khan was badly exposed.