By Jake Donovan
A brief summary of the year that has been for Amir Khan:
Boxing fans clamor for a showdown between Khan and Marcos Maidana. Khan states he doesn’t care who he fights. Golden Boy Promotions – the stateside promoter for both fighters – insist that they want to build up the fight for the sake of making it a bigger event.
Maidana is given March date on HBO against Victor Cayo. Khan winds up facing Paul Malignaggi seven weeks later in stateside debut; Maidana agrees to a fight with Tim Bradley, reschedules and then pulls out altogether in favor of a hometown showcase against faded DeMarcus Corley.
Fans insist that Khan is ducking Maidana.
Maidana looks solid against Cayo, stopping him in six. Khan walks through Malignaggi, stopping the Brooklynite in eleven. Maidana gets past Corley, though the performance not particularly one for the time capsule.
With their schedules now freed up and a date available on HBO (Saturday, 9:30PM ET/6:30PM PT), Golden Boy decides time is right for Khan and Maidana to finally square off.
Fans insist that Khan cherry picked Maidana as an opponent.
Such logic appears to be par for the course when it comes to assessing the Bolton resident ever since he turned pro five years ago.
He was largely celebrated as an amateur, particularly when making it all the way to the finals and securing the silver medal as the lone representative of the 2004 Great Britain Olympic boxing squad.
However, the public love affair seems to have dissolved with each passing fight.
Things appeared to bottom out altogether, when Khan was bumrushed by then-unbeaten but unheralded lightweight Breidis Prescott in less than a minute for what serves as the lone loss of his career.
Yet in this day and age, one loss is all it takes to lose fans and gain critics.
Fortunately for those who didn’t completely flee from the bandwagon, Khan was wise enough to treat the moment for what it was – a valuable learning experience.
“The loss was something that had to happen to me,” Khan (23-1, 17KO) insisted last week during a media conference call centered on this weekend’s headliner at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. “It made me realize how hard boxing is, and that I need to train harder.”
Included in the career makeover – which includes a five-fight win streak and his first major title as a pro – is the addition of Freddie Roach in his corner.
The boast coming out of the Khan camp these days is that the Bolton product has barely lost a round since hooking up with the four-time Trainer of the Year. While it’s an exaggeration (and perhaps Roach’s way of lighting a fire during Fight Week), it’s a lot closer to the truth than what comes from the other side of the argument – that Khan still has yet to prove his worth.
Wins over the likes of Oisin Fagan and Dmitry Salita are dismissed as showcase bouts against no-hopes. Fagan was the opponent of choice for Khan's first fight post-Prescott disaster, stopping the Irishman inside of two rounds; exactly 52 weeks later came the first-round blowout over Salita.
In between those two tune-ups came the two most significant wins of his career to date, though those too have been met with more skepticism than praise.
Few dispute the fact that he was in full control against Marco Antonio Barrera for as long as their first lasted in March 2009. What is disputed is: how far along Barrera was in his career, claiming the event as opportunistic more so than noteworthy; and how long the bout was allowed to continue after a first-round head butt left Barrera with a bone-deep gash.
Barrera’s protest to have the result changed to a no-contest fell on deaf ears, as did his plea for a rematch.
Instead, Khan went on to challenge for his first major title, easily outboxing Andriy Kotelnik throughout their 12-round bout last July.
The win looks even better in retrospect, considering Kotelnik’s strong showing this past summer against top junior welterweight Devon Alexander.
However, the glass-half-empty view of that fight is that the opponent was a moderate puncher at best, a common complaint for each of Khan’s past five wins, including – in fact, especially – his 11-round thrashing of Paul Malignaggi this past May.
The Malignaggi fight marked Khan’s stateside debut, which ultimately became the theme of the night more so than the notion of a competitive fight being sold to the public. Even more of a sticking point with the public than Khan not having to fear the incoming was the fact that the fight wasn’t against Maidana.
From an alphabet standpoint, a Khan-Maidana meet is a bit overdue. For the sake of simplifying, Maidana is functionally Khan’s mandatory challenger.
So when Khan and Golden Boy declared that there would be greater value in such a fight once both were able to better establish themselves amongst the American boxing public, many interpreted the claim as his way of avoiding the Argentinean, or anyone else with a puncher’s chance to win.
Then again, the same skeptics have insisted that Khan hasn’t exactly raced to secure fights with Tim Bradley or Devon Alexander. Both are universally regarded as the two best junior welterweights on the planet, but neither fighter is celebrated for his punching power.
Maidana is regarded as a puncher, if nothing else. That much was proven when he climbed off of the canvas to floor and eventually snatch the heart of Victor Ortiz in their June 2009 meet.
The night was supposed to be Ortiz’ coming out party. Instead, the belief by night’s end was that Maidana would quickly make his way boxing’s most avoided list. The lone loss of his career came in razor thin fashion, dropping a narrow decision to Kotelnik a few months prior.
Yet despite the fact that Maidana is the only one between the two with a history of avoiding fighters (though the Bradley fallout was later blamed on managerial issues), it’s Khan who has received the unfair rap of nibbling around the edges rather than pursuing tough challenges.
December 11 is Khan’s chance to kill two birds with one stone – taking on a top fighter, and one with fight-altering punching power.
“A lot of people say, ‘Amir avoids punchers,’ but I am taking on the biggest puncher in the light-welterweight division. This fight will answer a lot of questions."
With an impressive enough showing, hopefully it will go a long way towards helping Amir Khan disprove the myth that he’s a mere con.
Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of Boxingscene.com. Follow Jake on Twitter at twitter.com/JakeNDaBox or submit questions/comments to JakeNDaBox@gmail.com
