Barrera Rolling Full Steam Ahead Toward Amir Khan

[stefjonno1]

Personally I believe those who write Khan off are seriously underestimating the difference Roach is making to Khan. He is no longer the same idiot who lost to Prescott, and Pac rates him highly, based on their sparring sessions.

What you think he's dramaticlly improved in several months and one fight later?

I thought he looked a lot better in his last fight, but cmon he's fighting Barrera! I think this has thwe makings of a good fight simply due to Khans youth an speed, but sooner or later he's gonna get schooled.

[BBNpodcast]

I disagree. Of course there will be people who say "Oh Barrera was old anyway" if Khan wins - and if he does win, no-one should pretend that he beat a peak Barrera - but as you can see from the posts here, and from the betting odds, most people still think Barrera will win, so a Khan win would force those people to re-evaluate Khan's ability. Barrera is way past his best, but he's certainly not shot. He didn't fight badly against Marquez or in the second fight against Pac, and he'd still beat most fighters outside the very top tier. But in addition to being past his best, he's also fighting above his best weight, and Khan is a large Lightweight with an excellent jab and blinding handspeed.

What's in it for Khan is that it would be a valuable learning experience for him to fight a faded but still extremely canny legend who will force him to think and to fight smart; and that it would also greatly increase his marketability if he can beat Barrera.

And quite frankly, now that he has Roach in his corner, if he still can't beat a fighter who although being a future hall-of-famer is past his peak, doesn't have a particularly concussive punch, and is not a true Lightweight, then Khan wll know that he will never be a top tier fighter, and he may as well retire now.

Personally I believe those who write Khan off are seriously underestimating the difference Roach is making to Khan. He is no longer the same idiot who lost to Prescott, and Pac rates him highly, based on their sparring sessions.

I'm with you on this Dave Redo. Roach was with Pacman for the Barerra win, so he knows how the Mexican can be defused. With that knowledge, not to mention Roach's experience , Khan may get the win.

Barerra is older and has a track record of losing to speedy guys. Also, should he win Khan can run around saying he's world level and above the likes of Thaxton and Murray - which fits the bill fantastically.

However, I do think Khan deserves significant credit if he wins even though Barerra's older - I just wish those big domestic matches would happen at some point.

[Dave Rado]

What you think he's dramatically improved in several months and one fight later?

Yes, in several respects; and he'll have eight more weeks with Roach before he fights Barrera, and a lot more quality sparring; and he'll also have Roach in his corner for the first time, which will help ensure he sticks to the gameplan.

1) Khan's whole body has changed dramatically. Pre-Roach he had spindly legs and too much muscle on his back. Now his legs are sturdier and his back is leaner and more flexible. This will improve both his punch-resistance and his movement.

2) He had never been taught how to block or roll with punches properly, before Roach took him on. He's been working intensively on those things with Roach, and will continue to work on them until the Barrera fight. Also his stance used to be all wrong, and Roach has been working on that, too - and stance has a lot to do with punch resistance.

3) Although he's always had a good jab, he hardly used to use it, pre-Roach. Now he is doing everything behind the jab. Roach and Pac both say he has a superb jab - Roach has compared it with DLH's.

4) His tactics used to be pathetic, and he had no strategy at all, pre-Roach. With Roach in his corner he'll have the right game plan, especially against Barrera, whose style Roach knows extremely well.

[stefjonno1]

Although Freddie roach is a great trainer, im starting to think after Mani's great win over De la hoya everyone seems to think everything he touches turns to gold! It dont.

[Dave Rado]

Although Freddie roach is a great trainer, im starting to think after Mani's great win over De la hoya everyone seems to think everything he touches turns to gold! It dont.

No, it doesn't, but with the exception of Manny Stewart he's trained more elite boxers than any other living trainer, and he's massively better than any trainer Khan has had before.

Also, he is rated by most boxing experts as being a true boxing expert; and has a reputation for being brutally honest. He wouldn't have taken Khan on if he didn't honestly believe Khan had the potential to get to the very top. His opinion on this carries a lot of weight, IMO.

[PittyPat]

There's no way he would be ****** enough to use Naz's tactics against MAB, so I'm envisioning some of the same stuff he used against ***an - his footwork looked very, very slick compared to his previous outings. He won't be able to out-muscle him in clinches, but if he can potshot between his guard from a distance and keep moving in and out (like Manny against DLH), I reckon there's good chance of a convincing UD for Khan.

[v.cassiusali@ya]

poor john nolasco. not one even talk of his chances against the old marco antonio barrera.