Kevin Mitchell: Bradley has the power to test Khan
Paulie Malignaggi does not have the punch to keep the world light-welterweight champion at bay
Rumours that Amir Khan wants to fight Tim Bradley this year are hitting the wires, and I hope they’re true.
He insists the second defence of his WBA light-welterweight title against Paulie Malignaggi in New York on 15 May “is a great fight” for his American debut whereas it is a pretty good fight to prepare for someone like Bradley.
As I’ve said here before, Malignaggi has little or no hope against Khan because he cannot punch. If you want reminding of this, a month before the flashy and personable New Yorker fought Ricky Hatton in Las Vegas in 2008, he was telling us he could still not test his fragile right hand on the heavy bag. Hatton, while not at his best, walked through him all night before stopping him in the 11th.
Like a lot of fighters, Paulie’s had to live with bad hands. That, combined with an unwillingness to plant his feet, add up to a very limited punching arsenal.
Bradley, though, is a different proposition altogether. He’s unbeaten in 25 bouts and is a tough, methodical boxer with a sound chin and some good names on his CV, including Junior Witter, Kendall Holt and Nate Campbell. His last fight was a unanimous decision over Lamont Peterson before Christmas to retain the WBO title, and he has a 5 June date on his calendar against an opponent to be named.
He is the sort of opponent Khan needs to beat to convince the American fans he is real. They took to Naseem Hamed because he was a showman; Khan, not quite as flamboyant, has to do it with results and performances alone.
Naseem’s New York debut was in Madison Square Garden against the loud but lively Kevin Kelley and drew a big crowd, with loads of celebrities, and attracted huge print. The fact that it was a real up-and-downer didn’t hurt, either.
That set Hamed up for his subsequent US appearances – a scrappy win over Wayne McCullough in Atlantic City, a brawl against Cesar Soto in Detroit, a four-round blowout of Augie Sanchez in Mashantucket and the boxing lesson he received at the hands of Marco Antonio Barrera at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas nearly nine yeas ago.
It was not the grand tour he had envisaged. Boxing is like that. In Hamed’s case, it unravelled unsatisfactorily because he had lost his discipline. Khan is at the start of his career and in much better shape mentally, as well as having the best trainer in the business, Freddie Roach.
It will have been Roach who okayed this match-up. He’s no fool. He was happy to test Khan against the older, smaller Juan Manuel Marquez, but his trainer, Nachos Berenstein, declined. That’s hardly Khan’s fault, as he points out on his Twitter page. But now he has to get down to business and “prove the haters wrong”, as he says.
Sooner or later, he will have to meet Bradley, his deferred mandatory Marcos Maidana and Devon Alexander, the dangerous and unbeaten WBC champion.
Those are the three fights that will establish him in the United States. The Malignaggi bout is no more than a calling card. And I’ll say it again: if you can get any of the 9‑1 odds that were on offer for a Khan knockout win, have some. Referees tend towards count-outs in the US, rather than waving a fight over. And this one will be over around the halfway mark.
Prizefighter is perfect
Showtime took a big gamble when it launched what it called the “Super Six World Boxing Classic” last July. It was a noble effort in an ignoble world to find the sport’s best super-middleweight. It has been a qualified success.
The experiment was damaged early on when Jermain Taylor’s bad knockout loss to Arthur Abraham put him out of the tournament and, unless he changes his mind, into retirement.
Then Andre Dirrell, who gave Carl Froch a decent argument in round one, injured his back, and his fight against Arthur Abraham had to be put back to 27 March.
These things happen all the time in boxing but, in a tournament that is already scheduled to go on until late 2011, Showtime needs sustained impetus to hold the interest of a fickle audience.
When Froch and Mikkel Kessler met in Nottingham last week to discuss their second-round bout in Denmark on 24 April, it did not shift much football off the sports pages, which was a pity but almost inevitable.
It’s a terrific fight. Froch is unbeaten and holds a version of the world title; Kessler started the tournament as favourite but his stock slipped when Andre Ward boxed his ears off in round one – so he has plenty to prove in front of his adoring Danish fans.
But that’s the problem: a fight in Denmark is not going to generate much interest in the UK, especially as it was moved back a week from the original date, scuttling travel arrangements of those Froch fans prepared to make the trek the week before – and it is not on mainstream television.
Primetime will screen it again, and should be applauded, at least, for sticking in there. It looks to be committed to the full journey.
But there is not the buzz about the fight, or the whole tournament, that there should be. If Froch beats Kessler with a spectacular knockout and Dirrell does a number on Abraham, that could change. Those are big “ifs”. This is a tournament that badly needs a lift.
Barry Hearn’s Prizefighter, on the other hand, is near perfect as a knockout concept, even if on a much less ambitious scale.
It brings together aspiring and veteran dreamers and it’s all over in a carnival atmosphere on one night. Barring injury, it goes off without a hitch. This Friday night the light-middleweights go at it in the York Hall in Bethnal Green, and it’s already sold out.
The prospect of winning three three-round fights on one evening must give these pros nightmare memories of their amateur days, tournament boxing at is most demanding. The £32,000 prize at the end of it eases those concerns somewhat.
The draw is: George Hillyard v Prince Arron, Neil Sinclair v Bradley Pryce, Brett Flournoy v Danny Butler, Steve O’Meara v Martin Concepcion.
The winner should come from the bout between Sinclair and Pryce, the two most accomplished fighters of the eight. The Belfast man stopped Pryce in eight rounds seven years ago to win the British welterweight title, although the Welshman took the fight on short notice.
But the beauty of Prizefighter is its unpredictability, with older fighters drawing on past glories and the unknowns desperate for an upset. If he can find his old knockout power and look after his chin, I fancy 35-year-old Sinclair to win this one. He is, by all accounts, in the best shape of his up-and-down career.
Kevin Mitchell: Tyson v Douglas, 20 years on
We should have seen boxing’s biggest upset in Tokyo 20 years ago coming
The unpredictability of sport: it’s what drags us back every time, encouraging us to believe we will see drama, excitement, an injection of a thrill that might not be so obvious in our own lives, day to day.
Twenty years ago this week in Tokyo, James “Buster” Douglas gave the world all the drama and excitement it could handle when he knocked out Mike Tyson in the 10th round of a fight that has come to be regarded as the biggest upset in the history of boxing. But how much of a shock was it really?
It shocked nearly everyone at the time: the fight writers, the lone Las Vegas bookmaker who’d made Douglas a 42-1 shot, the promoter Don King … and it seemed, plainly, to shock the hitherto invincible Tyson.
Douglas said he always expected to win; that’s true only if you believe in hope as an expression of unshakeable conviction – which is a dubious premise. Douglas hoped with all his heart he could win. I doubt how much he believed it. While the bookies might have been underestimating the chances of the skilled if diffident heavyweight, Buster was still a locked-down underdog.
Buster was busted, his wife had just left him, the people around him didn’t think he had a prayer. Then, three weeks before the fight, his mother died from a heart attack. These were real tragedies – rather than the prospect of a sporting one in the ring – that inspired Douglas, a sensitive man unsuited to his profession, to give the very best he could on the biggest night of his life. It was sport, again, providing a stage for heroism, which is why many fighters fight.
But Tyson was 37-0 with 33 stoppages. How did he lose to this likable, 29-year-old sacrificial lamb of a man?
What was not so apparent then but became clear in the tumult that followed was the fact that Mike was also suffering away from the ring. He was critically underdone, physically and mentally.
In the hours before the fight, on 11 February 1990, Tyson sat in his hotel room, watching martial arts on TV, listening to his flunkies, as he had done all his life. He was also wrestling with a perpetual fondness for indiscriminate sex, whisky and other stimulants.
His life had for some time been a rolling catastrophe. His wife had publicly humiliated him on national television then left him. Cus D’Amato, his muse, had died. Don King was his master. The psychological traumas of his childhood that had lain dormant for years now gathered again to drain his resolve. Only two fights previously, Frank Bruno had rocked his head in the first round, only to fold in five. “Iron Mike”, as he was marketed, was there for the taking, sooner or later.
Tyson was told to believe he was the “baddest man on the planet”. He was not. He was, as Mickey Duff once memorably remarked, the biggest and best bully on the planet. And his self-loathing unravelled to expose the great lie as Douglas recovered from a withering uppercut and knockdown in the eighth to batter the champion into one of boxing’s most ignominious falls, in rounds nine and 10.
Tyson has left us with many images: from terrifying to vulnerable. But none matches for pathos the picture of his groping for his mouthguard on the canvas in the final seconds of his first reign, his eyes glazed, his powerful body electrocuted into baby-like clumsiness.
In truth, then, this was not so much a classic upset as an accidental collision of two lives, two fighters with their own burdens, handling them in entirely different ways. It was an aberration.
Douglas would surrender the title meekly to Evander Holyfield eight months later and be remembered as a curiosity rather than a great champion – much as James J Braddock, the original “Cinderella Man”, would be remembered after beating Max Baer to win the title in 1936, then losing it to Joe Louis in his first defence two years later. Braddock went on to make good money in the construction business.
Twenty years on from Tokyo, Tyson recycles his legend on the celebrity dinner circuit (largely in the UK), Holyfield, accused this week of assaulting his third wife, reaches still for one last crack at glory in the ring, and Douglas, just like Braddock, settles down to make some money in property, in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio. He might just have turned out the most contented of them all.
Say It Ain’t So, Amir, Roy, Bernard, Ricky, Johnny
Amir Khan wants to defend his WBA light-welterweight title against Paulie Malignaggi at Madison Square Garden on 15 May. You can bet Malignaggi wants it, too, because, although he’s got more ambition than is healthy for a fighter with no punch, he’s game, slick and he knows how to sell a fight, especially in his home town.
But this is a sham. Khan will knock Malignaggi out inside five rounds. Maybe earlier. You can get 9-1 from Skybet about that happening, so rush to your bank now. I’ve got to say I’ve never rated Paulie, a nice guy who reminds me of my teenage self shadowboxing in front of the mirror when I thought I was Ali but, weirdly, wasn’t. That’s the Magic Man. An illusion.
The word put out – and accepted without question nearly everywhere – was that Juan Manuel Márquez’s trainer, Nachos Berenstein, reckoned his 36-year-old fighter wasn’t ready for Khan because of the tough 12 rounds he endured against Floyd Mayweather Jr – nearly five months ago. Right.
Márquez doesn’t want to fight Khan because he knows he risks a beating from the younger, faster, stronger champion. He wants to fight the older, slower, bigger, shot Ricky Hatton. And that is what’s going to happen.
Then Khan is going to fight Hatton in Manchester in September and everybody will make lots of money.
This is boxing at its most cynical. Those critics of Khan’s who say he’s a paper champion now have ammunition. He should be fighting the dangerous mandatory challenger, Marcos Maidana – or Márquez, at least.
In fact, instead of Hatton, the domestic challenger I’d love to see Khan fight is Kevin Mitchell, whose maturing talent is on show at Wembley tomorrow night, when he defends his WBO inter-continental lightweight title against Ignacio Mendoza, who ought not be as dangerous as his Colombian compatriot Breidis Prescott, whom Mitchell mastered so brilliantly over 12 rounds to win the title in November.
Breidis kayoed Khan in 52 seconds, Mitchell did a total number on Prescott, Mitchell (although a division lighter) should fight Khan.
But the business doesn’t work like that. Maidana is happy to take step-aside money from Khan, and bide his time. In the context of this crazy sport, who could blame him? Khan-Malignaggi makes about as much sense as Roy Jones Jr and Bernard Hopkins going it at again, finally, when they should be putting their feet up.
The most bizarre rumour I’ve heard in a while was in Australia recently, when connections of their Contenders winner, a tough former rugby league player called Garth Wood, were putting it about that Hatton has offered them a fight this year in Macau. Surely not. Although Wood fights at super-middleweight (probably Ricky’s current poundage), he’s had only eight fights, winning seven, mainly against guys who can’t box, and been knocked out once. He is, as they say in Australia, dreamin’.
Ricky was out there on holiday over Christmas, stopping off to see Andy Murray at the Australian Open. Perhaps the sun, or the Fosters, got to him.
Finally, Johnny Tapia says he is making a comeback at 42. Pray for him.
Khan sets sights on Malignaggi bout in US
• Wants bout at Madison Square Gardens on 15 May
• ‘There is a very good chance of it happening’
Amir Khan has confirmed that he wants to make his United States fighting debut against Paulie Malignaggi at New York’s Madison Square Gardens on 15 May.
Rumours of Khan’s next opponent have been rife since he joined the American promoters Golden Boy last month, with Marcos Maidana – the mandatory challenger for his WBA light-welterweight title – and Juan Manuel Márquez mooted as potential candidates.
But having already made one mandatory defence with a 76-second stoppage against Dmitriy Salita in December, Khan has been looking to take on a bigger name than Maidana for his first bout in the States and with Márquez believed to have rejected an offer to fight, the 23-year-old has now turned his attention towards Malignaggi.
“15 May is the date that I have, the fight will be in America, and the opponent – we are looking at Malignaggi,” said Khan. “We were looking at Márquez, who pulled out, so it’s Malignaggi up to now, and we want to hear what he thinks about the fight. Golden Boy have put the fight to his promoter Lou DiBella, so we will see where we go from here.
“I want to fight him in his home town [New York] and beat him in his home town in front of his own people. The fight has not been made 100% yet but I think there is a very good chance of it happening.
“I’m just going to go in there and do what I normally do and I really think Malignaggi has a style which is going to make me look good. He’s not at my level. He has a few good wins in America, but it’s another fight for me and I’ll go there and do what I have to do.”
Talk of a fight between Khan and Malignaggi – who was beaten by Ricky Hatton in 2008 – has grown over the last few days after the two fighters became embroiled in an apparent war of words via Twitter, although the British fighter admits he prefers to square up face to face.
“I’m new on Twitter,” Khan said. “A friend was looking after it at first until I took over. My image is not talking trash – I let my fists do all the talking.
“My friend was fighting back with him [Malignaggi], so I took over the whole Twitter account about a week ago and you can see that it is different.”
Khan eyes title defence against Marquez
• Khan to defend WBA light-welterweight title against Mexican
• Floyd Mayweather Jr agrees to take on Shane Mosley in May
Amir Khan is set to defend his WBA light-welterweight title against the Mexican fighter Juan Manuel Marquez on 15 May in Las Vegas, according to unconfirmed reports last night.
The world champion recently decided to join Golden Boy Promotions and try his luck in America, leaving Britain and his former promoter Frank Warren behind, and his handlers have swiftly made an offer to Marquez. The fight, which could make Khan up to £5m, will almost certainly be held in the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
“Amir really wants a big fight in the US so the Marquez fight will most probably be in Las Vegas,” Richard Schaefer, the CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, told The Sun.
Khan is desperate to make a name for himself across the Atlantic and has been training in Los Angeles, working in Freddie Roach’s Wild Card gym alongside Manny Pacquiao. A victory over Marquez is thought to have the potential to vastly increase Khan’s reputation amongst boxing fans in America.
Marquez hopes to become the first Mexican to win world titles at four different weights. However his last fight saw him unceremoniously beaten in Floyd Mayweather JR’s comeback, a non-title fight.
“A fight against Marquezx is a breakthrough as he is one of the best and Mexico’s No1 active fighter,” said Schaefer. ” Once he wins against Marquez there is the possibility of a fight against Zab Judah – and then Mayweather Jr.”
Meanwhile Mayweather, whose proposed fight with Pacquiao was recently called off, has agreed to take on Shane Mosley, who will defend his WBA welterweight title on 1 May at the MGM Grand.