(Daily Mail - Mrach 16th page 69)
"Amir Khan is not so much back on track, as on the launch pad for a stratopheric rise to world titles and beyond. So overwhelming was Khan's blood-letting destruction of Marco Antonio Barrera in Manchester on saturday night, that his renowned American trainer, expects him to succeed Manny Pacquiao as the best pound for pound fighter on the planet, in due course. Freddie Roach should know. He schooles both Pacquiao and Khan at his Los Angeles Sweatshop and reports " When the pair of them get together in the ring to spar, it's like a cock fight, they are both so fast " Speed is the quinteessence of the modern champion and Roach enthuses, "Amir is a world class fighter already. The lightweight championship is only a couple of fights away, but since he has many of the same qualities as manny, he can be more than that. He's my next superstar. This performance against Barrera is his first step to greatness"
Then Powell says in his next paragraph, something which contradicts his first few paragraphs
" All right - as we suspected, all the more strongly, when this former king of the super-featherweights almost failed to make the 135lbs lightweight limit - this was not the Barerra who wrecked Prince Nasemm Hamed's career eight years ago. If not quite an EMPTY SHELL OF HIS OLD SELF, the 35 year old veteran of too many ring wars looked a SPENT FORCE......"
I don't know how journalists like this earn any decent reputation. It's ok for Freddie Roach to bull his man up and talk rubbish, but Powell is supposed to be a seasoned sports journalist, someone who should be able to tell the difference between hype and the real thing. Amir Khan fought a shot or extremely faded Barrera, a guy who is 35 years of age, has been inactive for a couple of years and only had a couple of fights at in the lightweight division. How on earth they can claim that Khan could become the next p4p king off saturday nights performance is unbeliveable and smacks of either delusion or sheer desperation to bull up a British fighter, now that Carl Froch is our only world champion.
Lets get the facts straight here. Khan has'nt even fought for a British title and taken on the likes of Thaxton or Murray. He has'nt fought for a European title. He has fought a lot of journeymen, no genuine calibre lightweights, mostly blown up super-feather weights like St.Clair and Gomez, been put down by the likes of Limond and sparked out by the unknown Prescott. That is the reality, which seems to have escaped the notice of people like Jeff Powel. All of a sudden, he spends a few months with Freddie Roach, faces a complete nobody in his comeback fight and then a shot or badly faded Barrera, wins both fights and can suddenly challenge Manny Pacquiuao to be the next p4p king.......Let's get real here
Khan has been managed well and has had good PR and media exposure from the start and can make a lot of people very rich. He is being treat with kid gloves and kept out of harms way, until he fights for a world title against a genuine lightweight elite fighter. Win or lose that fight and he will almost certainly lose, Khan, Warren and all the backers make a whole lot of money. If Khan trod the route to a world title in the orhadax way, ie, British and European titles, defend those titles, fight a few genuine top ten ranked lightweights, then get an eliminator etc etc, he would have lost well before being considerd for a world title shot and Warren and his backers know this, hence all the hype over beating a shot Barrera.
I personally don't think he deserves a world title shot, based on his performances, the titles he has won so far and the quality of his opponents, but it's boxing politics and finance that will get him a title shot and conveniently put his poor quality opponents and defeat to Prescott to one side.
Thoughts ?
DD
