By Vitali Shaposhnikov: After his recent fourth round TKO loss to Danny Garcia, Amir Khan has been on the very surface of most of the boxing forum discussions and articles. Despite the fact that Khan was able to climb the boxing rankings ladder, lately he has been descending as if it were an icy slide. With this recent loss, Khan’s stock has fallen, and the road back to the top might be a rough one.
Having said that, most boxing fans seem to be confident that Khan will not relent, and will be back on top in no time.
As far as the loss to Garcia goes, Khan thinks that it could have partly been due to the fact that he had to travel a lot in the weeks leading up to the fight. In an ESPN article (http://www.espn.co.uk/boxing/sport/story/160603.html), Khan was quote as saying:
“Sometimes a lot of travelling is not going to be good for you. I have travelled to the Philippines and back. Maybe what we did wrong was having two camps back to back as well. I was spending a lot of time away from home.”
Truthfully, I can see how travel and time changes could throw an athlete off. Jetlag is a real physiological response to changes in a geographical environment, and as all of us know, traveling can really tire a person out. Most fighters tend to chose one training site, and stick with it until the fight night, although some foreign fighters like to begin their training closer to home and the migrate to wherever the fight might take place.
For Khan’s training, he was nowhere near home during the entire camp. First he was dragged to the Philippines to train alongside Manny Pacquiao with Freddie Roach, and the ended up in L.A. to finish off his preparation. Maybe traveling all over the world is not a very solid reason for underperforming, but dismissing it is also unwarranted.
In an interview with the Daily Star (http://www.dailystar.co.uk/inthering/view/262597/Amir-Khan-crisis-talks/), Khan also discussed his future with Freddie Roach, and the fact that some things are going to have to change.
“It is hard when you are with Manny and have to be the No.2. Every fight is a big fight for me,” stated Khan.
No doubt Khan has had it with Pacquiao and Roach. Paying someone to help you win world titles, should always make you the priority of whoever is taking charge of the preparation. In Khan’s case, that person is Freddie Roach. We all know that Freddie’s relationship with Manny is very close, and they treat each other better than family. That very fact may cause some unnoticed dismissals of his other fighters that Roach might be overlooking and unrecognizing.
“I’m at the stage where I can make no more mistakes. I need to do things that benefit me and stop thinking about others, which I’ve been doing my entire life. In the end, it’s me who gets in the ring. Now is the best time to sort these things out and my team will talk things over with Freddie. I’m sure he will understand because he’s been a fighter too,” continued Khan.
I am assuming that the ‘others’ Amir is referring to is anyone who is present or is a part of camp Khan that doesn’t belong there during training, like Manny Pacquiao for example. And why should Khan give in and submit to whatever Roach desired him to do? In other words, Amir Khan is the boss when it comes to his preparation for a fight.
I always thought that it was peculiar that Roach flies Khan all the way to the Philippines to train with Pacquiao, even though most of that training involves road work and stamina improving exercises, all of which he could do wit his team back home.
One of the more interesting discussions happening now is whether a re-match between Garcia and Khan will actually happen, and if so, will it take place in 2012? I believe we will have an answer for this in the following couple of weeks.