By Rav: Since Amir Khan won the silver medal in Olympics at Athens, he as become a marketing dream and an over hype job as he as has progressed. Khan always had the dream of being a world champion, and that hunger showed as he was progressing until he was knocked out in the 1st round by unknown unbeaten prospect Breidis Prescott in 2008.
Khan had then moved to the Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles, California under the stewardship of trainer Freddie Roach and slowly started to rebuild winning his world title and achieving his aim of being World Champion. Khan then has showed he is eager to please the fans and impress television networks at the expense of leaving himself open and taking some shots in the process, as showed in his fight of the year bout with Marcos Maidana.
Khan expressed his desire to clean up the light welterweight division and constantly spoke about challenging Floyd Mayweather Jr., but then Khan came unstuck against a rugged Lamont Peterson in 2011, losing on points and being stopped against the un-fancied underdog WBC champion Danny Garcia in the fourth round in 2012.
Did Khan become too obsessed with chasing a career payday with Mayweather rather than his boxing legacy? Surely being a world class elite fighter, he should of got the job done and beaten both Peterson and Garcia, but instead showed his frailties leaving himself very open to serious head and body shots in the process. Both Peterson and Garcia hold the World title belts, and Khan hasn’t cleaned the division up. So therefore, Khan cannot claim to have been the best, and his wins over a blown-up lightweight Carlos Molina in 2012, and struggling win over Julio Diaz fail to show Khan progressing as a fighter. In fact, it shows backward steps for Khan.
Khan is on the verge of getting a shot against IBF welterweight champion Devon Alexander next December, but has he earned this shot? Is moving up a good idea for Khan? Is Khan just engineering his career for that big Mayweather payday?
Khan is in a make or break fight with Alexander of which he has to win to be even considered for a Mayweather bout, but will he still deserve it even if he wins? Could Khan’s career have stagnated due to this Mayweather bout obsession? Only time will tell, but if he would of been more focused on himself, he may have beaten Peterson and Garcia and earned the shot himself automatically rather than over-looking the opponents in front of him. No doubt Khan has had the talent but could he miss out on becoming a great due to trying to please the crowd, leaving himself open and chasing a Mayweather bout? Had he been more like Mayweather and had his focus we may have been talking about a different Khan today. Talent is one thing but you need more than talent to get to the top and stay at the top.
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