(Photo credit: Sumio Yamada) By Scott Gilfoid: Former IBF/WBA light welterweight belt holder Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) says he’s going to go back to the old way that he used to fight if he can get the huge money fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) on September 12th.
Khan recently won a tough 12 round unanimous decision over Chris Algieri on May 29th of this year in a fight that was a lot closer than the scores that were handed down by the three judges. Khan won by the scores of 115-113, 117-111 and 117-111. However, many boxing fans thought Khan just barely won the fight by the score of 115-113, and some even thought it was a draw or a loss for Khan.
Despite the poor showing, Khan remains confident of his skills and believes that he matches up much better against Mayweather, who he feels has a style that he can beat with his old way of fighting.
“I am going to do what I did in the fight against Devon Alexander,” Khan said to Skysports.com. “Against Algieri we tried to change it up a little too much but then again you can’t really take a lot from the fight as he came to win and he’s really hard to beat.”
I didn’t see much that Khan did differently against Algieri that he did in his previous fights. The only thing that I noticed that was different was that Khan was getting walked down by a guy that had the better size, and a superior jab, and Khan couldn’t do much with that style. Khan doesn’t fight well when he’s pressured, and never has. Once Algieri started putting a lot of pressure on Khan, it left him in a situation where he had to back away from him and fight on the run. Khan obviously is figuring that Mayweather won’t put pressure on him the way that Algieri did, and he won’t come into the fight with a big size advantage in the fight.
“I am probably going to go back to what I do best, improve a few things, I have seen the video of when I fought Chris Algieri but like I said I am only getting better and I am in a great position at the moment,” Khan said.
Mayweather hasn’t even said that he’ll be fighting Khan, so it’s kind of a waste to contemplate what Khan will or won’t do against the American star. If Khan doesn’t get the Mayweather fight then he’s going to have to use his old style of fighting against the other welterweights in the division. The trouble is Khan can’t continue to fight the weak punchers forever. He’s eventually going to need to start fighting guys like Keith Thurman, Kell Brook, Shawn Porter, Danny Garcia and Marcos Maidana if he wants to be one of the major players in the division. I mean, you can only go so far fighting the likes of Devon Alexander, little 5’5” Carlos Molina, past his prime Julio Diaz, and a no longer relevant Luis Collazo.
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