By Dan Ambrose: Since the Amir Khan vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight was first announced earlier this past week, few boxing fans have been giving the 29-year-old Khan much of any chance to beat the hard hitting Mexican star Canelo in their scheduled fight on HBO pay-per-view on May 7 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Overall, the fans largely see Khan as little more than a slender, flawed, underachieving, fragile-chinned fighter. The fans doubt that Khan will be able to stay on his feet for the full 12 rounds with the heavy pressure Canelo will be putting on him in this fight.
Khan says he’s going to prove the fans wrong and make history in the process by showing the world how great he is.
“By beating Canelo, which I will do, people are going to say ‘wow, we did think Amir was good but we didn’t think he was this great,” Khan said to thestar.co.uk. “It is time to make history and show people how great I am.”
I do not think people are going to see Khan as a great fighter if he beats Canelo on 5/7. If anything, the fans will see more than ever that the 25-year-old Canelo is not going to be one of those kinds of stars than wins all the time unless his promoters at Golden Boy continue to carefully match him against weaker opposition like they’ve been doing lately.
We already saw Canelo get beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013, and arguably beaten as well by Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara. Canelo should have three defeats on his resume in my view. If Khan beats Canelo, it would not mean that Khan is great. It would just mean that Canelo is terribly flawed and does not have the goods to step into Mayweather’s shoes as the best fighter in the sport.
“I believe it is my time and my time to make history,” Khan said. “I believe I will prove a lot of people wrong. I will put in one of the best performances of my life.”
I do agree with Khan that he would be proving many boxing fans wrong if he were to defeat Canelo. The fans obviously are just going with logic in selecting the bigger, stronger and more experienced Canelo over Khan. Canelo is younger and he fights in the middleweight division.
It’s normal for him to be seen as the favorite in this fight due to his size and power. It would be the same way for Khan if he were to face a top fighter from two divisions below him in the lightweight division. Khan would likely be the favorite if he were matched up against lightweights Jorge Linares, Anthony Crolla, Terry Flanagan or Rances Barthlemey. Those are good fighters, but I think Khan would have too much size and power for them to handle him.
“The way I want to beat him is in a very good style that people will be like ‘wow and I did not expect that,’” Khan said. “What is going to make me happy is going into this fight against a bigger guy and beating him and making history.”
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