BoxRec

DaveyH wrote:Why do people always feel the need to bring race into it? People also don't like James Degale and Frankie Gavin because of their perceived "arrogance" and between Khan, Gavin and Degale you have three different skin types. It's such a cheap way to find a fault with peoples opinions.

For the record though I actually quite like Khan, every time I see him on TV he comes across as a decent lad, down to earth, knowledgeable about the sport and also very respectful to his opponents, the interviewer etc. I think the issue stems from silly things like twitter, the whole fiasco with the fast cars and driving ban etc. Things that occur when there's no cameras rolling or PR people around to to advise.

I admit I was quite critical of Khan for a long time, but I always wanted to be impressed with him. I wanted him to prove me wrong and I wanted him to that in the boxing ring with good performances. All the rest is just garnish really. He came across well in the Olympics and I was ready to support him.

I think he lost his way a bit in the pros. There was so much hype around him but yet it seemd obvious he was going to have an extremely protected FW esque career. I sort of lost interest because he'd look amazing against highly average opponents and the media would gush about how great he was. Seemed a bit false, especially as there was no British or European title run. Khan seemed to go from beating guys like Mohammed Medjadi in 30 seconds to "I've surpassed the likes of Jon Thaxton." Well no, sorry Amir you need to prove that by actually fighting guys like Thaxton, not just making the bold statement that you're too good for them and avoid them.

For what it's worth I always thought Amir would beat Jon, but Jon deserved the opportunity and would have been a very solid test that the public would have lapped up and Amir would have earned a lot of respect.

The same applied to Romanov and Murray, very real live challenges that Amir bypassed to fight feather fisted lighter men like St Clair and Kristjansen.

Then Prescott happened, maybe the down to earth bump Amir needed.....

But no, a return against the tough but highly limited Fagan, and the absolute disgrace that was the Barrera fight, and I was despairing again. That a legend like Barrera should have been treated so badly in a British Boxing ring to me was a stain on the sport. Amir should have spoke out and admitted the fight was a joke and offered Barrera a rematch at least. But no, all we got was "I've just beaten a legend, I've proved everyone wrong." Very poor.

So yeah for a while I wasn't happy with Amir, all that potential and a career that looked below par, but yet while seemingly fooling large chunks of the media. But now he's showing the ambition and ability to do what his abilities suggest he can. He wants to fight the belt holders, he went to war with maidana and proved that above all else he is a warrior too and he can fight blood and guts when needed.

Judah was a dangerous task on paper, it's not Amir's fault Judah wussed out but then again Judah only did that because Amir destroyed him, made Judah realise he was out of his depth.

So yeah to sum up I've happily changed my mind about Khan and I just hope he sorts out this TV nonsense and gets back in the mainstream somehow. It'd be a shame for his best moments to be hidden away on some PPV channel and a tiny column in the papers.

Ian 'Mr' McNeilly wrote:

Controversial wrote:I'm the first to admit I was never a Amir Khan fan. I couldn't stand all the hype around him as an amateur, that he was going to be the greatest fighter ever, blah blah blah. As a pro he looked very quick, but I thought he lacked power, had a dodgy chin and was being fed a diet of average fighters, who when he beat he was being written about like he was the second coming of Sugar Ray Leonard.

When he was kayoed I thought he had been found out, however I have to hand it to the fella he is proving me wrong. My opinion changed quite recently with his win over Maidana, I thought he fought a great fight and proved his chin wasn't as bad as I thought.

So anyone else's opinion changing from bad to good?

Pretty similar to me, tbh. What also made it worse were these idiots saying that if anyone didn't like Khan it was because they were racist. This had nothing to do with it.

I've always thought he was a nice chap, actually - I just didn't like how in the early days journeymen kept getting hyped to the general public when we knew he'd hammer them.

But if one can't respect what he's done now then something's wrong. Great stuff.