BY GABRIEL PRINCEWILL
The championship battle between Amir Khan v Collazo Alfarez will be a thriller tonight in one of the most enthralling fights in many years of boxing. Khan who has gone up two tiers of weight, is the personification of speed at its most admirable level. He always promises excitement and courts risks that have paid off more often than not.
The challenging assignment facing Amir Khan tonight will require a special performance for him to leave the ring with Alfarez’s world championship belt, and wake up to celebration galore in the press and among his core fans. Khan will be a national hero to overcome this potent force at a weight two levels above his natural weight. Of course, Amir Khan is bigger now and probably stronger, but it remains to be see whether he can withstand the power of an experienced fighter of the stature of Alvarez at Championship level. Alvarez is a credible world champion.
Alfarez at only 25 has had 48 fights, and himself is fast, sharp, and heavy handed. He attacks with plenty of lateral movement and fires heavy shots to the body with a high sense of urgency and purpose. He can fight both on the inside and the outside, having the nous to instinctively know when to pull away from a fierce exchange, and perfectly time his return to continue his high offensive.
Alvarez was enthralling in his last defeat of Miguel Cotto, showing the kind of gladitorial prowess that speak volumes of a real world champion. Nobody less than a legend of sorts will beat Alvarez.Amir Khan will have to put on the performance of his career to win this one, and reality is that he is capable of it.
Yet if at this bigger weight , amiir retains the natural fire in his belly that makes him excite and also reveal his vulnerabilities, we will be in for a true classic showdown tonight. And though Khan is an underdog for this fight, this is one of those contests that just has to be seen to discover what happens. Khan has been berated in many circles as one having a glass jaw, though he has many times taken clean shots to the jaw without going down. Serious doubts abound as to whether he can take the kind of furious shots with which he will certainly be examined by the durable and vigorous Mexican attacker.
Amir Khan has always been a real fighter, a self assured professional, even in the face of the sort of adversity that has crushed his hopes of victory. The key with Khan is keeping his defense tight even even when launching his trade mark very swift attacks, and the unknown factor of whether his heavier weight will stand him in good stead when a big puncher like Alvarez attacks him incessantly in spurts. The Bolton boxer who thrilled the nation when he won Silver at the 2012 olympics has his critics and haters. Some detest him, saying he is too brash, and others despise him to the unjustified level of being derogatory towards him.
What will really matter is if he can show some genius and deliver an emphatic victory.
It promises to be an action packed riveting bout, with both prize fighters optimizing their output of blows and utilizing all the savvy techniques in their armory This fight should be over in 5 high powered rounds of action . It’s hard to see Khan surviving 12 rounds of the sort of relentless and sustained offense he will face. He will fight fire with fire too, Khan is a championship kid, and something will have to give just before the midway round.
Khan is the one likely to be stopped after a compelling fight that goes down in history. But if the victory of Sadique Khan as London Mayor today is any indication of some magical wand of fate, it could be Khan who spectacularly closes the show around the 5th or 6th, to make it two Khan’s in a row. I can’t see this fight going past 6 rounds.
Pic: By Chamber of Fear- originally posted to Flickr as Amir Khan, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10366993
