(Photo credit: Lucas Noonan/Premier Boxing Champions) By Allan Fox: Former IBF/WBA 140lb champion Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) defeated 140lb contender Chris Algieri (20-2, 8 KOs) by a harder than expected 12 round unanimous decision on Friday night on Spike TV on Premier Boxing Champions from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. the final judges’ scores were 115-113, 117-111, and 117-111. Khan was definitely stunned at least two, possibly three times by hard right hands from Algieri.
Once Algieri settled in to putting pressure on Khan, he was able to hit him a lot with right hands to the head. To Khan’s credit, he was able to take the blows, but he also wasn’t facing a real stronger puncher. But it didn’t look good how Khan’s head would snap back violently each time Algieri would ring his bell with clean right hands. Algieri wasn’t looking to throw a lot of punches like he’s done in some of his fights. Instead, he was focusing on throwing shots that he would load up on for maximum impact. By sitting down on his shots with everything he had, ALgieri was able to muster respectable power. He clearly had Khan very worried and not nearly as aggressive as he normally has been in facing over-matched opposition in the past three years.
Where Algieri went wrong in this fight was by failing to stay busy enough to win rounds. He was looking too much for one big shot in most of the rounds, and this resulted in him failing to throw enough punches. By having long lulls in between punches, Algieri allowed himself to be out-worked by Khan, who stayed busy throwing a lot of fast 1-2 combinations to score points with the judges.
Algieri looked considerably bigger than Khan in terms of weight. He looked like he’d rehydrated to 160 [middleweight]. If you compare the size that Algieri came into his last fight against Manny Pacquiao with how he looked tonight, he was a lot bigger for this fight. Perhaps the extra size gave Algieri more power than previously, because he sure had Khan fighting scared through much of the fight.
Khan took a lot of hard shots from Algieri, however. Algieri came into the fight with a reputation as not being a hard puncher, but he seemed to stagger Khan at one point early in the fight in the 3rd round. Algieri also was able to nail Khan with a lot of head-snapping shots. Between the two, Algieri was clearly the harder puncher.
Khan definitely didn’t dominate Algieri like he’d done against some of his previous opponents like Devon Alexander, Luis Collazo, and Carlos Molina. This was a much tougher fight for Khan, and he definitely took punishment in there. We can only imagine how the fight would have turned out if Khan had stayed in the pocket for 12 rounds instead of moving and holding like he was doing all night. Algieri might have had a chance of scoring a knockout.
In watching how Khan fought, you can make an argument that he did himself a disservice by failing to stay in the pocket enough and by doing too much holding and moving. The movement didn’t make sense in that he wasn’t facing a puncher, but he treated Algieri like he was one. Given that Khan was trying to earn a fight against Mayweather, he didn’t fight nearly aggressively enough to achieve that goal in my view.
Algieri did a good job of hitting Khan with his jabs and looping right hooks. Khan was frequently pulling away going to his right after landing shots, and Algieri was able to time him and tag him hard.
In the 11th and 12th rounds, Algieri had Khan backing up and holding constantly. The referee let Khan get away with a massive amount of holding and head-locks without taking off points or giving him any hard warnings.
After the fight, Khan said that he wants to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. next in September. However, the performance from Khan wasn’t one of his better ones, and it wasn’t nearly the kind of performance that you see from fighters that get fights against Mayweather. If Khan does get the fight against Mayweather, it will because he sees him as the best possible opponent in terms of money. But if Mayweather wants a tougher fight, he would likely get a far better fight against guys like Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman and Kell Brook. Those three are very good fighters and they’ve done more than enough to earn a fight against Mayweather.
We learned tonight that Khan isn’t rugged enough to stand in the pocket even against a guy like Algieri, who isn’t a big puncher. Khan just seems too fragile to stand and trade. If this had been Kell Brook, Marcos Maidana, Lucas Matthysse, Danny Garcia or Keith Thurman in there with Khan, I think it would have gone badly for him. I think there are some other guys at 140 and 147 that would also give Khan major trouble with their power.
If Mayweather was looking for vulnerability from Khan in order to make the decision to fight him, I’m betting that he was pleased with what he saw tonight from the British fighter because he clearly showed himself to be very vulnerable. Mayweather want to look in another direction if he’s seeking an exciting opponent, because there are more exciting fighters than Khan. For example, Algieri was more exciting than Khan was tonight, and a lot more interesting to watch. Mayweather can do better by picking out someone with an entertaining style of fighting so that fans can get their money’s worth in his last fight in September. Picking Khan would be asking for trouble because he’s too defensive and not willing to do the things he needs to in order to make it exciting. All the holding from Khan was really hard to watch.
Other boxing results on the card:
Javier Fortuna UD 12 Bryan Vasquez
Marcus Browne UD 10 Cornelius White
Keith Tapia KO 8 Leo Pla
Heather Hardy SD 8 Noemi Bosques
Chris Colbert TKO 2 Marquis Pierce
Wesley Ferrer MD 6 Jose Miguel Castro
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