By Edward Chaykovsky
Abel Sanchez, trainer for WBC/IBO/WBA/IBF middleweight champion Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin, expects Amir Khan (31-4, 19KOs) to rebound very well after suffering a brutal knockout earlier this month at the hands of Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez.
Sanchez was ringside and watched with invested interest, because Golovkin's handlers are in active talks to potentially face Golovkin in the fall.
The veteran trainer agrees with Khan's opinion of the knockout. Khan says his career would have been in jeopardy if he would have taken a twelve round beating, and was almost pleased that he suffered a one-punch knockout.
"I think that he’s gonna rebound a lot better than if he had been beaten up for twelve rounds. I think he got caught with a good shot, Canelo hits hard and he’s bigger. Amir has been hit before like that and he has rebounded, so I don’t think there’s going to be any damage going forward, but I’m glad it was one punch and not twelve rounds," Sanchez told On The Ropes Boxing Radio.
Sanchez had predicted the exact layout of Khan-Canelo. He felt Khan would create issues in the early rounds, but eventually Canelo's size and strength would catch up with the British star.
"I thought Amir followed the game plan and did well for the first couple of rounds, he confused Canelo a little bit. As the rounds went on, it seemed like Canelo slowed the rhythm down, slowed the tempo down to set Amir up — he was hitting him with straight right hands to the body, he was setting up that shot that he hit him with. It was a good fight up until that point," Sanchez said.
"Amir Khan’s a little bit faster, he’s a lighter weight guy so he’s a little bit faster, he has very good boxing skills. I thought Canelo took a couple of rounds to figure him out, but once he did, he got his timing down and it was easy to figure out what Amir was gonna do because of the talent of Canelo."
