Amir Khan: Who’s Fooling Who

Amir Khan: Who’s Fooling Who

For Amir Khan the hand speed is still there, but worryingly for Khan based on his performance against a brave but limited Samuel Vargas very little else remains.

The sharpness and the timing is missing and an already perceived fragile chin seems to be even more delicate. If we are to judge Khan on what he is aiming for, the performance was poor and concerning.

Despite the lopsided nature of the judge’s scorecards, 119-108 119-109 118-110, those scores do not truly reflect what we witnessed last night in Birmingham. Khan was dropped heavily towards the end of 2nd, the bell arguably saved his career and yet again the bell came to his rescue in the 10th when he was caught again and the legs did a funny dance. If Vargas had landed just a little earlier in those rounds we would now be writing the boxing obituary of Khan.

For the majority of the contest Khan seemed in imminent danger of unravelling, especially in the 10th where he seemed desperately tired, even in spells where Khan was having the upper hand, I always had the impression Khan was one punch away from disaster.

For nearly the entire contest Khan was constantly looking towards his corner, unsure what to do or unsure of himself, either way, those glances tell plenty.

Post-fight comments from Khan saying he wanted to go the full 12 rounds seemed strange at best when he clearly went for the stoppage at times especially in 2nd and the 5th where he unleashed a salvo of punches which briefly looked as though Vargas would fold under the barrage. But Vargas survived and despite being clearly behind always looked capable of causing the shock.

Khan lives to fight another day, but the question needs to be asked, should he fight on. While calling Khan a shot fighter might be a little wide of the mark but there seems to be an irreversible decline, and you do seriously worry for him when he meets someone several leagues above Vargas.

Khan was such a good fighter in his prime, and I don’t believe he ever got the credit for how good he was, but judged on what we saw in Birmingham another world title reign looks remote at best.

The show will go on of course but I found last night to be a rather sad episode and sadly I fear much worse will follow.