Has Virgil Hunter improved Amir Khan?

[Finn]

Khan is just so chinny, hunter needs more time with him he looked to still be shaking off alot of the old style, manny glove banging, straight lines and going ragged when the pressure was put on. However i dont think his defensive style is the right on, the watson style defence with his handspeed would suite him better, the way murray used the peekaboo defence last night is the way khan should be operating.

However the kid is bloody exciting to watch and even with his weaknesses you cant really write him off. He was arguably robbed against peterson so you cant rule off him beating him in a rematch and garcia started to struggle with judah last night; khan completely outclassed judah. He wont be able to dominate a division imo but he is going to be on demand as a marquee fighter even after losses because of the excitement he bring to the table.

[whiskey]

Khan is exciting for all the wrong reasons.

Martin Murray was exciting for all the right reasons.

One fighter was wobbling from pillar to post against a completely hand picked opponent, in a venue 45 mins from his house and was charging a fortune for tickets.

Whilst Murray was putting it on a P4P top 3 champion in his back yard, dropping him and busting him up, whilst thousands of miles away in a hostile country for Brits, with 50,000 there booing you - and then throw in a thunderstorm blowing in from the side.

That's excitement for all the right reasons.

In winning, Khan's stock plummeted.

In losing, Murrays stock shot through the roof.

[mrbassie]

Khan's usually the taller fighter, I don't know why he doesn't utilise that at all. He doesn't jab enough and he leans forward looking to land combo's non stop. He's fast but he's also predictable, once he's flurried a few times these guys have a good idea of what's coming next, they throw with him and he gets hit. He doesn't set anything up with the jab, it's more often than not just the first punch of the combination.

[lefty]

I like Khan as a boxer and as a human being but his split from Roach was a smokescreen.

Khan does not have a glass jaw but he does have a tendency to be caught by fast handed fighters and if those fast hands have some power he doesn't have great punch resistance.
What he does have is superb fitness, a heart and good recovery abilities which can get him through some rough patches in fights, but he'll always be one punch away from losing against most fast, hard punchers, particularly the hard counterpunchers.
Moving from Roach was a PR rebuild exercise and they tried to deflect his weaknesses and put blame on Roach. This won't help Khan improve. He needs to accept reality and work on a style that minimises his frailty. In that respect Virgil is a good choice but I lost a bit of respect when he pointed to Roach's techniques as one of the problems.

I dont see how Khan can minimise fragility. It's an occupational hazard of a world championship level boxer that they will get hit, unfortunately every time that happens for Khan it's near on fatal.

I dont see how Virgil Hunter is a good choice in terms of reducing fragility, for I don't think it's even possible.

Khan almost always, gets completely robbed of his senses when he gets punched hard in the head against world class punchers.

Amir Khan will never be able to replicate the fighting sale of Andre Ward and in any event Ward is not fragile around the whiskers.

Virgil Hunter will do nothing for the boy. It's predictable as night follows day that when Khan next fights a world class fighter he will, at some stage get hit and invariably dropped and stopped.

I think you can minimize the amount you get hit but you have to have a brilliant boxing brain to do that ie Andre Ward or Guillermo Rigondeaux. Someone of that ilk! You have to think a certain way I think to box that way and im pretty sure that isnt Amir Khan!

[Syntax Error]

No.

Virgil Hunter was saying on Radio 5 Live this morning that Khan needs to spend ALL of his time with Hunter himself in order to be as good as Hunter thinks he will be.

He cited Andre Ward, who spends all of his time with Hunter & the likes of Mayweather Jr & Garcia who spend all of their time with their trainers & he feels that Khan has to do this, otherwise he will never improve.

[Finn]

Khan's usually the taller fighter, I don't know why he doesn't utilise that at all. He doesn't jab enough and he leans forward looking to land combo's non stop. He's fast but he's also predictable, once he's flurried a few times these guys have a good idea of what's coming next, they throw with him and he gets hit. He doesn't set anything up with the jab, it's more often than not just the first punch of the combination.

well he did do what you are suggesting once or twice - against Paulie and kotelnic and it worked perfectly. Then he changed his style.

[mrbassie]

Khan's usually the taller fighter, I don't know why he doesn't utilise that at all. He doesn't jab enough and he leans forward looking to land combo's non stop. He's fast but he's also predictable, once he's flurried a few times these guys have a good idea of what's coming next, they throw with him and he gets hit. He doesn't set anything up with the jab, it's more often than not just the first punch of the combination.

well he did do what you are suggesting once or twice - against Paulie and kotelnic and it worked perfectly. Then he changed his style.

There you are then. The Manny Steward mentality would suit Khan's physical attributed to a tee. Unfortunately he thinks he's a big puncher and will always win in a shootout, just seems to be ingrained in what ever passes for his brain.

[orbtastic]

Yet ironically in what you might judge his most cautious and sensible fight plans he was in against the two biggest non punchers at world level.

[CheckHook]

For me, I actually thought Khan looked a little worse last night than in previous outings.... His punch resistance, which was never all that great, almost seemed worse and his punches just seemed to lack a little of the venom they have in the past. He still fought the same way that has got him into trouble in the past. I'm a big fan of his offensive skills but I think his defense and movement after landing a combination are awful. I think they would be best bringing another few solid pro's up from lightweight and keep things simple before Khan goes after another world title, he doesn't look the same fighter as he was in the past, he looks worse..... For comparison, I thought he beat Peterson and was unlucky not to get the decision but I think Peterson would have a much easier nights work and beat him handily if they fought later this year.

[lefty]

For me, I actually thought Khan looked a little worse last night than in previous outings.... His punch resistance, which was never all that great, almost seemed worse and his punches just seemed to lack a little of the venom they have in the past. He still fought the same way that has got him into trouble in the past. I'm a big fan of his offensive skills but I think his defense and movement after landing a combination are awful. I think they would be best bringing another few solid pro's up from lightweight and keep things simple before Khan goes after another world title, he doesn't look the same fighter as he was in the past, he looks worse..... For comparison, I thought he beat Peterson and was unlucky not to get the decision but I think Peterson would have a much easier nights work and beat him handily if they fought later this year.

I disagree in regards to him fighting the same. I genuinely think he was more patient! His punch resistance did seem worse and I also agree that his punches seemed fairly light in comparison to normal. Although saying that he's not a genuinely hard puncher anyway.

[n1ebf]

Was going to vote no but voted yes. It was nice to see Amir not jump in in the first couple of rounds, even when he came out on top he stepped off, sensibly. I didn't want to see him get taken out there by the Mexican/American......however.......there was a lot of one-two, one-two from Khan last night. Those flashy shots were not enough to keep Diaz away from him and it really looked like he was going to get knocked out in there at times.
I would have liked to see Khan dig some meaty body shots in there and hurt his man enough to slow him down but he didn't do. Khan's full of muscle, he should be able to bang to the body with at least a modicum of power to deter Diaz but he seems to go for head shot, head shot, head shot but not hard enough to get stoppage.
His younger brother faced a stern challenge and he was jumping in there from minute one. He's got some talent but I was almost expecting him to come a cropper a-la-Breidis Prescott style.
Khan showed balls and some smarts to hold on when he needed to do, he was a punch away from being taken out IMO - these people who said "Julio Diaz - not a world champion - Khan's fighting a bum, how dare he not fight a world champion? really need to get real. Mexicans don't lie down as a rule in my experience.

[CheckHook]

For me, I actually thought Khan looked a little worse last night than in previous outings.... His punch resistance, which was never all that great, almost seemed worse and his punches just seemed to lack a little of the venom they have in the past. He still fought the same way that has got him into trouble in the past. I'm a big fan of his offensive skills but I think his defense and movement after landing a combination are awful. I think they would be best bringing another few solid pro's up from lightweight and keep things simple before Khan goes after another world title, he doesn't look the same fighter as he was in the past, he looks worse..... For comparison, I thought he beat Peterson and was unlucky not to get the decision but I think Peterson would have a much easier nights work and beat him handily if they fought later this year.

I disagree in regards to him fighting the same. I genuinely think he was more patient! His punch resistance did seem worse and I also agree that his punches seemed fairly light in comparison to normal. Although saying that he's not a genuinely hard puncher anyway.

I kinda feel like he was a little more patient maybe, but did the bad things the same amount of times, if that makes sense.... Maybe he was more patient, but it felt like when he did mount his attacks he still made the same errors, we want to see him cutting out the errors rather than cutting out the frequency of his attacks.

[lefty]

For me, I actually thought Khan looked a little worse last night than in previous outings.... His punch resistance, which was never all that great, almost seemed worse and his punches just seemed to lack a little of the venom they have in the past. He still fought the same way that has got him into trouble in the past. I'm a big fan of his offensive skills but I think his defense and movement after landing a combination are awful. I think they would be best bringing another few solid pro's up from lightweight and keep things simple before Khan goes after another world title, he doesn't look the same fighter as he was in the past, he looks worse..... For comparison, I thought he beat Peterson and was unlucky not to get the decision but I think Peterson would have a much easier nights work and beat him handily if they fought later this year.

I disagree in regards to him fighting the same. I genuinely think he was more patient! His punch resistance did seem worse and I also agree that his punches seemed fairly light in comparison to normal. Although saying that he's not a genuinely hard puncher anyway.

I kinda feel like he was a little more patient maybe, but did the bad things the same amount of times, if that makes sense.... Maybe he was more patient, but it felt like when he did mount his attacks he still made the same errors, we want to see him cutting out the errors rather than cutting out the frequency of his attacks.

Maybe its too late for him now? I dont know! He's been doing these habits a long time. It takes ages to eliminate bad habits like that. Maybe he should of gone to Virgil Hunter earlier on in his career?

[CheckHook]

Maybe its too late for him now? I dont know! He's been doing these habits a long time. It takes ages to eliminate bad habits like that. Maybe he should of gone to Virgil Hunter earlier on in his career?

I think a few more seasoned pro's comming up from lightweight would give us a better idea and maybe give Khan time to at least work with Hunter. I don't think we are going to get that though, he will be thrown in there with another durable world class fighter soon, there's too much money out there to be made. A win puts him in line for a Mayweather shot which would be too much money to turn down..... I kinda feel like the writing is on the wall and Khan is getting stopped again either late this year or early next year, but I hope he proves me wrong. Still a big fan of his and he has given the British public some cracking fights over the last few years, hope he has a few big wins still to come, but I'm feeling less optomistic about his future.

[binipop]

Was going to vote no but voted yes. It was nice to see Amir not jump in in the first couple of rounds, even when he came out on top he stepped off, sensibly. I didn't want to see him get taken out there by the Mexican/American......however.......there was a lot of one-two, one-two from Khan last night. Those flashy shots were not enough to keep Diaz away from him and it really looked like he was going to get knocked out in there at times.
I would have liked to see Khan dig some meaty body shots in there and hurt his man enough to slow him down but he didn't do. Khan's full of muscle, he should be able to bang to the body with at least a modicum of power to deter Diaz but he seems to go for head shot, head shot, head shot but not hard enough to get stoppage.
His younger brother faced a stern challenge and he was jumping in there from minute one. He's got some talent but I was almost expecting him to come a cropper a-la-Breidis Prescott style.
Khan showed balls and some smarts to hold on when he needed to do, he was a punch away from being taken out IMO - these people who said "Julio Diaz - not a world champion - Khan's fighting a bum, how dare he not fight a world champion? really need to get real. Mexicans don't lie down as a rule in my experience.

I've often thought this of Khan. The Maidana and Judah fight fight showed that he can be a very effective body puncher but he doesn't seem to utilize it much.

[TheCobra]

Same old Khan for me, gameplan goes out the window every time if you can't take a punch.

[CiganoBoxer]

Its a cliche ..But Different trainer, same chin ?

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Khan looks like a fighter that has had too many trainers try to employ too many things. He obviously doesn't have that kind of Ring IQ. He's regressing as far as I can tell. His offense is less fluid now and he's constantly thinking. Not blaming Virgil, but he doesn't have a sponge like Ward on his hands.

[hurlock]

Khan is boxing top class opposition & it's tough going!
When limond hurt him I thought khan would never be able to live world class fighters but he has & is doing good IMO. Do people expect him to be like mayweather or somthing??

[danconnollyeire]

No. The only reason Khan wasn't stopped IMO was because Diaz isn't as good as Garcia.

Khan was supposed to look very good indeed. He looked worse than in first 3 rounds of the Garcia fight for me.

This!

Khan needs to shut up talking Mayweather. I was kind of on the cards, then he lost, TWICE and stopped by a guy with only decent power, and not great skill in comparison to a lot of people Mayweather has beat, let alone Mayweather. If Diaz can nearly get a win/draw, Floyd win every single round easily. His head movement takes all of Khan's speed away

[Scrap]

Khans problem isnt His Chin, its His Hips.

[banjo]

No, Khans biggest problem is his lack of a boxing brain, he goes into a fight with a game plan but has no capacity to make the changes necessary when his opponent changes his tactics and he's had too many barnacles blowing smoke up his arse for most of his career, I don't think he'll ever change he'll just be one of those fighters around world title level and may pick up another bauble or two before he retires but he'll never be up there with the elite.

Mayweather would turn him inside out, he'd be lucky to see the 6th round.

[Scrap]

Because of His Hips

[Controversial]

Possibly, didn't think Khan boxed as well as in the past but managed to get himself out of a few sticky situations which he might not have before. His chin a major problem though.

[stujones]

Did Khan suffer a purfurated ear drum? His ear looked swollen and cauliflowered in the interview. That might have impacted on his balance a bit.