By Matt Plumridge: Amir “King” Khan 31-3-0 (19 early) has spoken of his strong belief that he will shock the world against Saul Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 early) in their eagerly anticipated Cinco De Mayo clash on May 7th.
In a conference call alongside his trainer, Virgil Hunter and Golden Boy’s Oscar De La Hoya, it was clear that Khan was happy to give Alvarez his dues and unusually in today’s fight game, talk openly about the tactics that he believes will see him take back home the WBC Middleweight belt and ruin Canelo’s festival.
“I’m up against a very big middleweight fighter, which Canelo, he’s a middleweight world champion. We’re doing everything right. I mean, look, my skills are what’s going to win me this fight. I know I’m not going to be stronger than Canelo in any way. I’m not going to be thinking I’m stronger than Canelo, but I’m going to stand with him and fight with him. I think my skills in this fight will win me the fight, and I don’t know if the speed I have is something that — I don’t think that Canelo’s experienced speed with combinations and speed with power. I would say I will definitely shock the world come May 7th, otherwise I wouldn’t take the fight”
Khan also spoke of a growing sense of confidence within the camp from studying videos of Canelo, with an increasing belief that he sees flaws with his movement that could lead to the shock he expects. While that will be no surprise to the boxing world that Khan is faster than Canelo, he also seemed more aware that he couldn’t afford any mistakes against such a hard hitting champion.
“It’s been tough, obviously, working on these strategies with my trainer Virgil, being more focused, because I know that one little mistake in a fight like this could get me in trouble, so I’m making sure that I’m not making any mistakes from being in the ring, scoring, or being in the gym training, doing work, or even outside the ring when I’m recovering and how long I’m going to be keeping the weight on — because I want to walk into this ring strong. I don’t want to be too light because by being too light, it won’t make me real strong.”
This more humble response definitely gives Khan his best chance of winning the fight. More often than not he has been disrespectful of his opponent’s abilities and in the case of both the Danny Garcia and Bredis Prescott fights, this led to Khan believing he could not get badly hurt, when the opposite was true.
By admitting this to himself and on the basis knowledge is power, I am expecting to see the very best Amir Khan come fight night. We all know he needs to stay away from Alvarez to give himself a chance and continued respect should be shown to Khan for the way he has put himself forward and is behaving in the run up. Whether he can live with Canelo for 36 minutes is another story – but Khan is right on one point, it would most certainly be a shock to most if he won.
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