Richardson says Khan going 12 rounds with Canelo is a victory

By Brendan Taylor - 05/07/2016 - Comments

1-khan-alvarez (8)By Brendan Taylor: Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KO’s)  comes into tonight’s bout with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KO’s) as a heavy underdog and for good reason. The former Olympic silver medalist has shown lack of a chin in the past dating back to his knockout losses to Danny Garcia and Breidis Prescott. Why would any rational human being expect Khan to last 12 rounds with Canelo, is the question we should ask ourselves.

Hall of Fame trainer Naazim Richardson believes Amir Khan just going the distance with the hard hitting Mexican is a victory in itself. “If Amir Khan goes 12 rounds it’s a form of a victory, his career takes a step up if he goes the distance” is what Richardson told Brendan Taylor of Tru School Sports.

This is a fair assessment given that Khan is a natural junior welterweight who hasn’t fully proven himself against top level opposition at welterweight. He’s also coming off a performance where he struggled and had his knees buckled by a well documented light puncher in Chris Algieri. So if the avocado warrior can stun Khan, who’s to say that Canelo couldn’t flatten Khan?

Khan made the weight limit of 155 and looked pretty good at the weigh-in, but with Canelo we know he’s going to put on anywhere from 15-20 pounds by the time he enters the ring on fight night. The positive thing for Khan is that he’s not the only one who has to answer questions and make statements in this fight. Canelo also has somethings about his own fight game he has to address.

Canelo has never knocked out a B-class fighter in his career, so to get Khan out of there in that fashion would be a first for him. The best fighter Canelo ever knocked out was Kermit Cintron and it’s a known fact that Cintron wasn’t the same fighter when he moved up to junior middleweight that he was at welterweight. Cintron went 4-3-2 at 154 with additional losses to Carlos Molina and Paul Williams.

Canelo isn’t an overly aggressive fighter and it takes him a couple of rounds to get warmed up, so stylistically speaking this is a fight where Khan can put rounds in the bank early. If he’s able to do that and avoid exchanges early then one would have to believe that would increase his chances of pulling off the upset.

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Regardless of what happens tonight someone is getting exposed. Either the chin of Amir Khan will get exposed or the lack of elite power and boxing IQ of Canelo will be exposed. Amir Khan has been yearning for that moment to become a megastar, a win over Canelo in a fight that’s great for him stylistically can do that.