By Dan Ambrose: WBA welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman thinks that the underdog Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) needs to sit down and study tape of Floyd Mayweather Jr’s win over Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) from three years ago so that he has a better chance of beating him on May 7.
Thurman isn’t ruling out a win for the 29-year-old Khan, but he thinks he’s going to need to fight smart by following the Mayweather blueprint.
Thurman has his own ideas of what Khan should do against the larger Canelo that are completely different from what Mayweather did in 2013. Instead of choosing to throw mainly single punches and jabs the way Mayweather did, Thurman believes that Khan should throw combinations, uppercuts and flurries and then quickly get away before Canelo fires back his own power shots.
“He [khan] can’t allow himself to get caught up on the ropes,” Thurman said to Michelle Phelps. “He can’t allow himself to get trapped in the corners. Amir being younger than Cotto and faster than Cotto, he needs to throw combinations that are similar. If he can throw those flurries, and get in and execute; throw those fast punches as soon as Canelo opens up.”
It sounds like Thurman is trying to get Khan knocked out, because there’s no way that he’s going to be able to throw combinations against Canelo without getting countered. Even Mayweather realized that he couldn’t throw combinations. If you watch the Mayweather-Canelo fight, you’ll notice that Mayweather was throwing single shots virtually the entire fight.
The only occasions where Mayweather threw combinations was when the fans got excited from time to time after he had nailed Canelo with a straight right hand and left hook. Mayweather would then throw a combination, but not a three-punch combination. Mayweather stopped throwing combinations period in the 9th after getting caught by a big right uppercut from Canelo. From that point on, Mayweather jabbed and moved around the ring to play keep away. Canelo was as helpless as a baby at that point. He wasn’t doing anything before that, but after Mayweather started moving, the fight was basically over.
“I think he [Khan] should definitely watch film on how Mayweather fought Canelo, because Mayweather was able to stay in the pocket but keeping a lot of the ring behind him,” Thurman said. “I don’t think Amir Khan should do what’s called ‘running on the outskirts,’ which is with his back against the ropes. I think with his back up against the ropes, he’s going to use a lot of energy. Canelo is going to be able to cut off the ring from time to time and trap him, and land some big shots. Really, he shouldn’t want him to land any big shots,” said Thurman.
Thurman’s advice for Khan to stay in the center of the ring is sound advice. However, that’s still not easy to do because it will require that Khan move in small circles or back up when Canelo comes forward. It’s very hard to stay in the center of the ring unless you’ve got something that will make your opponent respect you. You’re not going to slow down a freight train type Canelo fighter until you nail him with single right hands and hard jabs to the head. For Khan to do that, he’ll need to be really accurate with his punches to go around Canelo’s guard, because he’s going to have his hands up as he marches forward.
Khan needs to ignore most of what Thurman wants him to do and focus on following Mayweather’s blueprint for the Canelo fight to the letter. Khan cannot throw combinations against a puncher like Canelo, because he’s likely going to be giving away 20 pounds in this fight at the minimum. Khan can’t throw combinations against a guy that weighs 185lbs, because it’ll be too dangerous. Khan needs to just fight smart by throwing the single power shots that Canelo is too slow to stop. If Khan can do that all night long, then Canelo will have a hard time dealing with it because he won’t be able to catch Khan in between shots the way that Danny Garcia did. Khan also needs to forget about trying to throw left hooks, because that’s too dangerous. Khan was knocked out by Breidis Prescott when he tried to hit him with a left hook in their fight in 2008.
Comments are closed.