Of the four pro defeats Amir Khan has suffered – to Breidis Prescott, Lamont Peterson, Danny Garcia and Canelo Alvarez – it is the third defeat he picked up, at the hands of Garcia, that bothers him the most – simply because Khan fully believes, as do others, that he was beating Garcia before “making one mistake and getting caught.”
Khan craves a shot at revenge, and he wants one far more than he wants a fight with fellow Brit Kell Brook. Khan, who says he cannot wait to return to ring action with his “new” right hand, having had surgery on the hand before Christmas, aims for a tune-up first before hopefully getting the rematch with Garcia towards the end of the year.
A lot will depend of course, on how “Swift” does in his huge March 4 unification fight with fellow welterweight champion Keith Thurman. If Garcia wins, Khan will be desperate to get the return with him.
“The fight between me and Garcia always hurts me. I know I could’ve won that fight,” Khan tells The Mirror when looking back on the 2012 stoppage loss that took place down at 140 pounds. “I was beating him and schooling him, until I got hit with a big shot. That was me not thinking and sticking to the game-plan. I know how training camp went for that fight. I thought the fight was going to be a walk in the park and I didn’t take it seriously. I thought he was the new kid on the block, I thought,’ Who is this kid?’It was all one-sided, but then I made one mistake and got caught.”
Khan was indeed ahead before Garcia’s big left hand ruined him, the stoppage coming in the 4th-round. Can Khan box a smart fight and get revenge if he’s given the chance, or would his oft-ridiculed chin let him down once again? Garcia, who Khan says has impressed him since the win he scored over him, has not thus far shown the same firepower as a 147-pounder as he did down a weight class.
Silly as it may sound, a Garcia rematch just might be the best chance Khan has of winning anything approaching a mega-fight at this late stage in his thrilling, up and down career. If Garcia beats Thurman, his phone will be ringing and it will be the Bolton man doing the dialling.