By Scott Gilfoid: Former Saul “Canelo” Alvarez victim Matthew Hatton doesn’t like Amir Khan’s chances of winning against Canelo on May 7. Hatton took a pounding by Canelo five years ago in losing a 12 round unanimous decision, and it wasn’t a pretty fight.
Hatton was given a royal thrashing by Canelo in a fight that begged for someone in Hatton’s corner to throw in the towel to save him. Hatton is no longer fighting now, and he does not Khan’s chances of beating Canelo. Hatton thinks Khan will do okay in the early rounds, but once Canelo starts landing his big shots at some point, Hatton sees Khan folding up.
“I can’t look past a knockout sooner or later for Alvarez,” Hatton said to ESPN.com. “Amir looks a lot better at welterweight and he sticks to a game plan, he has got better with Virgil Hunter, but he’s certainly not going to have been hit as hard before as anything like he will be on May 7.”
I totally agree with Mr. Hatton. Khan has never been hit as hard as he’s going to be getting hit by Canelo in this fight, and I don’t think it’s going to end well for Khan. It would be good if Khan were to face a couple of good middleweights first before fighting Canelo.
At least we’d know whether Khan could handle a major league punch from a fighter in the 160lb division. You’d like to see a fighter get tested by some lesser middleweights before you put them at the top of the class against one of the best like Canelo.
Khan is doing things backwards by just skipping past the prerequisite opponents and just jumping into a class that he’s probably not going to be ready for. I’d like to have seen Khan first fight David Lemieux and Tureano Johnson before facing someone like Canelo. We’d know after watching Khan toil against Lemieux and Tureano whether he would be able to handle it against a guy like Canelo. My guess is Khan would be knocked out by both Tueano and Lemieux.
“I think Amir will start the fight well, he has fantastic speed, but I think sooner or later as Canelo cuts the space down and starts landing the fight will be over. It might be that Amir is winning the rounds, but as soon as Canelo closes him down, it will be over,” Hatton said.
I think it’s going to end soon rather than later for Khan. I mean, he might have a few moments in the 1st round, but I suspect he’ll get chopped down before he even gets to the 2nd round. I don’t think Khan will be able to make it out of the 1st round unless he just runs the entire time. Khan has too much of an ego for him to do that, however. He doesn’t like to run that much. Khan prefers to come forward, throw combinations, and then either hold, shove or put his opponents into head-locks. You can forget about Khan being able to hold in this fight because I think Canelo wil be much too strong for him to be able to grab him and hold.
Comments are closed.