Amir Khan

By Bennie

The announcement this morning that Amir Khan is to fight the winner of the Juan Manuel Marquez-Juan Diaz return clash at lightweight later this month in Las Vegas came as a blow to those still waiting for the Bolton boy to risk his chin - to risk anything - in the two-year wake of his sub-one minute destruction at the hands of Breidis Prescott in Manchester in 2008. We all know the story: Khan went down twice, heavily, and looked so fragile that one wondered how he would ever recover. He recovered remarkably well, of course, brought back quickly and shrewdly with morale-boosting wins over Oisin Fagan and Marco Antonio Barrera, before trouncing Andreas Kotelnik for the WBA light-welterweight title and blowing away Dmitiry Salita in his first defence, although none of the four men were punchers like Prescott, who somewhat infuriatingly appeared on the same bill as Khan's 76-second dismissal of Salita. If only it were Khan outboxing the rangy Colombian that night and not Kevin Mitchell.
Then came Khan's decision to move to the States at a time when British promoter, F rank Warren, was lining him up here with Argentine puncher Marcos Maidana, although the thought of his competition in the States largely excited and diverted fans. Khan is steered out there, for all intents and purposes, by trainer Freddie Roach, an ex-fighter with Parkinson's Disease who believes that the punches he took late in his career caused his condition. Roach told Mike Tyson to retire after his surprise loss to Danny Williams and 'knows' when a fighter is through and when a fighter is vulnerable.
Roach was brought in to buoy and improve Khan after the Prescott disaster and would have had his say on Khan's comeback opponents, although Mr Warren and his matchmaker Dean Powell played the real blinders, particularly in their inspired choices of the fading but still credible Barrera and the technically adept but light-hitting Kotelnik. Indeed, Khan has fought only once entirely for Roach: an 11-round turkey-shoot against the brave but non-punching Paulie Malignaggi in defence of his world title a couple of months ago in New York. As Khan showed in his comeback, he looks a million dollars against men who cannot hurt him.
Now comes the problem. Roach continues the cotton-wool treatment with today's downbeat announcement of Marquez or Diaz next up for Khan. The fleshy Diaz, dubbed "Baby Bull", was well-beaten by Malignaggi last December in Houston, on a night when Diaz came in at well under the light-welterweight limit (and to remind you, Diaz and Marquez go head to head at lightweight), and he is the bookies' favourite to topple the 36-year-old Marquez, who turned pro down at featherweight when Khan was all of six. Roach knows more than anyone that a good big 'un always beats a good little 'un. It was his move from super-featherweight to lightweight in his boxing days that saw him copping all those late head shots from the likes of Greg "Mutt" Haugen and Hector Camacho.
Roach must have a very good reason for looking down after he hooted about his man unifying the light-welterweight division post-Malignaggi. Khan is a huge light-welterweight, a 23-year-old future welterweight, with masses of competition in his division, so why the pursuit of lightweights? For now he – and we - makes do with either Marquez or Diaz, but you wonder what the next year brings, or the year after that? We sit, we wait, grow a little older, grow a little wiser.