Khan defeats Collazo, then calls out Mayweather

By Boxing News - 05/03/2014 - Comments

003 Khan vs Collazo IMG_0667(Photo credit: Tom Casino/Showtime) By Scott Gilfoid: In a fight filled with constant holding and pulling down on the neck by Amir Khan (29-3, 19 KO’s), he defeated former WBA welterweight champion Luis Collazo (35-6, 18 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision tonight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Khan knocked Collazo down three times in the fight in dropping him in the 4th once and twice in the 10th round.

The final judges’ scores were 117-106, 119-104, and 119-104.

Collazo lost a point for hitting Khan low in the 8th round. Khan was leaning on Collazo’s neck, as usual, and Collazo got tired of it and nailed Khan low to get him to stop. Oddly enough, the referee took a point away from Collazo instead of Khan for pulling down on Collazo’s head.

In the 4th, Khan nailed Collazo with a short right hand to knock him down. Later in the fight, Khan dropped Collazo with with a left to the body after hurting him with two body shots. Khan then teed off on Collazo and knocked him down with a right to the head. Collazo was looking away at the time at his corner, and didn’t see the punch.

In the 12th round, Collazo hit Khan with a low blow while Khan was pulling down. Collazo looked like he got tired of Khan pulling that move, and decided to take things in his own hands by nailing Khan with a low blow to get him to stop this habit. It worked in this case because Khan stopped pulling down on his head finally. However, Khan had already spent an entire fighting pulling down on Collazo’s head and had only lost one point.

This was not the kind of performance from Khan to where he stole the show tonight like he had promised to do in the days/weeks before the fight. Khan’s constant movement/running, shoving, holding and pulling down on the head of Collazo really took away from the fight. It’s one thing for a fighter to move for the entire 12 rounds of the fight the way Khan did, but when you add in all the pulling down on the head, the constant clinches and the shoving, it was really off putting. The fans weren’t screaming during the fight the way they do when they see an impressive performance, and that was the real sign that Khan failed to wow the crowd.

“Collazo was very awkward. The crowd wants to see me fight Mayweather. I believe I have the problems to give Khan a lot of problems.”

For me, this wasn’t an impressive enough performance from Khan for him to deserve a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. Besides the running and holding that Khan did the entire fight, it wasn’t a good enough opponent for Khan to deserve a fight against Mayweather. Collazo is someone who had fought only one decent opponent in the past 5 years before this fight tonight. I’m sorry, but I believe Khan needs to take on young and relevant fighters like Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter for him to deserve a fight against Mayweather. Beating the 33-year-old Collazo wasn’t a big enough win in my book for Khan to be getting a fight against Mayweather.



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