Amir Khan: The Next Big Thing?

Amir “King” Khan (23-1-0) is a Pakistani-British boxing sensation, current WBA world light-welterweight champion, and seemingly the total boxing superstar package. He has good looks, charisma, excellent technical boxing skills, superb speed, decent power, along with a silver medal from the 2004 Olympics and an excellent trainer, the same trainer as 7 weight class world champion Manny Pacquiao, 4-time trainer of the year Freddie Roach. Is he the next big thing in boxing?

He certainly made a case for himself in his American debut last Saturday at Madison Square Garden, putting on a boxing clinic as he dismantled fast-talking and fast-punching contender Paulie “the Magic Man” Malignaggi (27-5-0). Khan worked the double-jab beautifully, rotating to the left, coming from angles, popping Malignaggi in the head with 223 punches according to HBO’s Punchzone, the bulk of which were stiff jabs. Khan lead on the judges’ scorecards, taking every round up through the 11th, finishing the defenseless Malignaggi with a hard flurry to earn the referee stoppage, cementing Khan’s impressive American debut with an 11th round TKO. In the interview following his victory, Khan expressed his interest in unifying the light-welterweight class by defeating the heavy-handed WBA light-welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana and then taking on the winner of a proposed fight between WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley and WBC and IBF Light welterweight champion Devon Alexander. Khan certainly exhibited the confidence of a champion as he proposed to unify the light-welterweight titles, but there remains some skepticism as to whether Khan possesses another certain trait shared by great champions: a good chin.



HBO’s Punchzone showed that over 11 rounds, Khan took only one punch on the chin and in return, Khan landed a total of 91 punches on the chin of Malignaggi. Khan’s ability to avoid being hit on the chin is commendable on one hand, but it also raises some concern, as Khan is clearly indicating his unwillingness, and perhaps inability, to take a good punch on his chin. After his embarrassing 1st round knockout loss to Breidis Prescott in 2008, it is no surprise that Khan is extra cautious when it comes to taking shots to the chin. While it is impressive that Khan went through a whole fight only getting hit on the chin once, once may be one time too many if the fight with Marcos Maidana (28-1-0) comes to fruition. Of his 28 wins, the heavy-handed Argentinean has won 27 by way of knockout, giving him a KO percentage of 93% with 10 knockouts in the first round, so Khan will have to fight a perfect fight if he plans on defeating Maidana and eventually unifying the light-welterweight titles.