Algieri will need to bring some power to beat Khan

By Boxing News - 05/29/2015 - Comments

EW5G1248(Photo credit: Lucas Noonan/Premier Boxing Champions) By Scott Gilfoid: Unless former WBO 140 light welterweight champion Chris Algieri (20-1, 8 KOs) makes some major improvement in his punching power for tonight’s fight against Amir Khan (30-3, 19 KOs), we’re likely to see Algieri go down to defeat.

That’s way a lot of fans see it, and it’s also the way former two division world champ Paulie Malignaggi sees it. Khan does well against fighters with zero power who try to box him. The guys that Khan struggles with are pressure fighters and ones with superb punching power.

Lamont Peterson showed that a guy doesn’t necessarily need to possess major power in order to beat Khan. He just needs to put relentless pressure on the British fighter, take the fight to the inside, and not give Khan room to run around the ring. It also requires a good referee who will step in and stop Khan once he starts going overboard with his shoving, pulling down on his opponent’s heads, holding and hitting, and putting them in headlocks.

Khan uses all these tricks when things aren’t going too well for him. However, if you saw Khan’s last fight against Devon Alexander, you’ll have noticed that Khan didn’t employ these tactics because Alexander made the foolish mistake of trying to box Khan rather than putting pressure on him. I imagine that if Alexander did pressure Khan like Peterson and Marcos Maidana did, we’d have seen reverted to form with him shoving, pulling down on his head, and putting him in head-locks all night long.

The thing is once Khan starts these tactics, he appears to be immune to feedback from the referees. Despite losing a point and receiving countless warnings and one point deduction from the referee Joseph Cooper in the Peterson fight, Khan continued to shove the American fighter around the ring. Hopefully, we don’t see Khan reverting to these tactics tonight because it would turn the fight into some kind of hybrid boxing/MMA type of fight.

“It’s a logical next step for Amir if he can’t get the Mayweather fight – to keep busy. I think Algieri is a solid guy – but stylistically it’s not a good fight for Chris,” Malignaggi said to IFL TV. “Guys who box don’t typically do well against Amir. You need more than just to be a boxer, you need to have some sort of bang in you so to speak.”

Algieri is obviously book smart, and you would think that he’d have the sense enough to know that he can’t box Khan. But we saw how clueless Algieri looked against Manny Pacquiao in his last fight when he gave away the first six rounds of the fight by fighting passively. That was Algieri’s strategy for the fight, believe it or not. He thought that he could start out slowly, and then come on strong in the second half of the fight to get the win. That was a total fail, and anyone with any kind of sense would have known that it was a plan doomed for failure coming in. That’s why I have my doubts whether Algieri has the boxing IQ to fight smart enough to beat Khan. I’m sure if this was a classroom, Algieri would totally obliterate Khan on a written test. After all, Algieri has a Master’s degree. But with the way he fought against Pacquiao, he looked someone who didn’t know anything about boxing. He was just lost out there.

The blue print is already out there in how to beat Khan. You put constant pressure on him, don’t let him have any space to run around and use his jab. You hit him as hard as you can to the head, and don’t waste time hitting him to the body. You go for the chin or the jaw, and time him. I don’t know that Algieri has the power or the sense enough to know that he’s got to go for the KO.

“Anybody who boxes, examples like myself, Devon Alexander, guys like that, you know?” Algieri said. “We’re just pure boxers and not any kind of bang in them. Amir tends to do really well against them. You need a bit of physicality to your style to trouble Amir, even if you’re a boxer, you need a bit of physicality.”

Algieri needs to time Khan when he comes forward looking to throw his old 1-2 combination. Khan always throws those punches, and it’s so predictable that it’s not even funny. All Algieri needs to do is time Khan, and nail him right when he’s looking to throw his left-right combination. If Algieri can do that, he’ll get the KO win, and Khan’s career will be in the dustbin once again, but this time likely for good.



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