By Scott Gilfoid: Amir Khan will need to be at his first best for him to beat Floyd Mayweather Jr. on May 3rd, says Khan’s trainer Virgil Hunter. It’s still unknown if Khan will even get the fight against Floyd, but Hunter is talking as if it’s going to happen – or maybe he’s talking so that he hopes it will create enough interest and pressure to convince Mayweather that Khan is the way to go for his next fight. Either way, Hunter seems to be talking a lot in the media about Khan’s chances of beating Mayweather.
Let’s look at this in real terms. Khan’s career is basically limping a long at this point with him having lost 2 out of his last 4 fights, and barely escaping a third defeat in getting a controversial win over Julio Diaz in his last fight. You can call that a loss and you wouldn’t get many people arguing with you. Khan probably would have lost to Marcos Maidana 7 fights ago if not for referee Joe Cortez going into overdrive in the past three rounds in separating Maidana from Khan continuously after Maidana had Khan on Bambi legs.
I think Khan would have lost the Maidana fight without Cortez getting in the way of the action over and over again. No way on earth do I see Khan beating Maidana again, not even if he Cortez in there breaking up all the inside action. Khan doesn’t seem like the same fighter he was back then, and he was flawed as heck in the chin department even then.
“Amir is going to have to put it together and be clicking on all cylinder, and if he does, then he can shock the world,” Hunter says to RingTV. “It’s going to be a fight that will really surprise the world.”
I think Hunter needs to step back and take a clear look at Khan after a good cup of coffee. There’s not going to be any surprise or great shocks in this fight, if Khan even gets it, which is very questionable at this point. Marcos Maidana is the better money fight for Mayweather, and he’d be making a mistake of agreeing to fight Khan and having no interest in the fight in the U.S.
It’s neat how Hunter describes it in car terms. Well, let me do the same. Since the beating Khan took from Maidana in 2010, Khan has been like an old car with 300,000 miles on it, shooting back smoke out of his rear end, misfiring like mad, and stalling out at stop signs. With the exception of his low blow win over an over-the-hill Zab Judah in 2011, Khan has looked terrible in wins over Paul McCloskey, Carlos Molina, and Julio Diaz. Now let’s talk about Khan’s defeats since the Maidana fight. Khan was beaten by Lamont Peterson by a 12 round decision in 2011, and stopped in the 4th round by Danny Garcia in 2012.
Some would say that Khan should have been given a victory over Peterson, but I don’t agree with that. Khan was forced to shove, pull down on Peterson’s head and clinch him from the 5th round on after tasting some of his power in the 4th when Khan tried to go toe-to-toe with Peterson. If Khan didn’t shove and hold like mad, I think he would have been knocked out. So in other words, Khan deserved the loss because he basically showed that he couldn’t fight Peterson without holding, shoving and pulling down on his head 24/7.
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