BOXING LIGHT-WELTERWEIGHT TITLE FIGHT:LAST SEPTEMBER Amir Khan appeared to be heading for boxing Palookaville at only 21 after an awful night in Manchester. Fifty-four seconds on the wrong end of Breidis Prescott's fists saw Khan on the canvas and fight writers penning the obituaries of the career that had sparked with silver at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
But Khan has fought back from that first-round humiliation. First he knocked out the Irishman Oisin Fagan inside two rounds last December, before stopping the former multi-weight world champion Marco Antonio Barrera in March, and he woke this morning contemplating his first tilt at becoming a world champion.
Back in Manchester, he hopes this evening to relieve Andreas Kotelnik of his WBA light-welterweight belt.
The pivotal moment in Khan’s renaissance came when Freddie Roach, the American whose previous clients include Mike Tyson and Oscar De La Hoya, agreed to train him. Khan bases himself at Roach’s LA WildCard gym where he has spent the past 10 months sparring with Manny Pacquiao, the pound-for-pound champion, and earning eulogies from Roach that he can be his next “superstar”.
Khan was naive against Prescott, unable to keep his suspect chin from trouble while picking the Colombian off at range. Now, the line is that he has soaked up Roach’s wisdom, learning how to temper his previous punch-and-hope style.
“Freddie’s got the experience and I trust that with everything,” Khan says.
“I’ve modified it [his style] by throwing shots from your chin going straight, instead of from your waist. Moving the head, not being too static, not being wild. If you start throwing eight or nine shots you’re going to get caught, bang, and the fight could be over.
“Look at Manny. I go to the gym an hour early to see him train, pick a few things up. He does different things on the pads, the way he keeps his hands up, how he doesn’t move and his hands are still up. So I copied him.”
Khan has defined Kotelnik as the weakest man in possession of a world title. It is hoped this view does not prove hubristic. Yet with enthusiasm, more than arrogance, Khan is insistent on speaking of the greatness he is reaching for beyond the Ukrainian.
“This is my stepping stone, yeah. I want to thank Kotelnik for letting me have a shot at the title. I’m so confident I’m going to beat him. He thinks that me moving up a weight, I won’t be as strong but I’m very strong, I’m a hard-hitting fighter,” Khan says of what will be only a second outing above lightweight.
“My ambition from day one in this sport has been to become a world superstar. Freddie has told people I am his next big thing – he must have seen something inside of me to achieve that. He’s the type of man that wouldn’t say something like that to keep me happy but because he means it.”
But Kotelnik is no mere walk-on in Khan’s great narrative. Although the 31-year-old has lost twice in 34 outings, the statistic that will be exercising Roach and Khan is that Kotelnik has never been stopped: stamina in the closing rounds may define the fight. If Khan does win then the dreams of box-office nights under the lights of Las Vegas and Madison Square Garden will begin to firm up.
Tonight we should find out where Khan stands.
GuardianService
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