Khan is a brave guy - that much is clear. But he needs to be brave AND smart; he's big and strong and it should be possible for him to just hold on to his opponent more when he gets hurt.
The saddest moment in the fight -- Khan's face when Bayless waved it off. At 2:10 onwards: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzRnv-DLPtA[/ame] He looks devastated. I agree. He has a lot of heart, but he's not smart at all. To be fair, it must be very difficult to remain calm and think properly when someone is hitting you with haymakers, but Khan needs to learn how to survive when he's hurt. He managed it against Maidana, but in the Garcia fight he tried to swing back rather than just moving away and clinching. He made the same mistake in the Prescott fight. In fact, the first knockdown also reminded me of the Prescott fight -- the fact that it was a left-hook counter that did most of the damage, and the way Khan was swaying around and moving backwards when he got up, trying to regain his balance. He needs to make some big changes if he wants to keep fighting. Unless he addresses his mentality in the ring and his defence, this will just keep happening. It is worrying, because he must have built up brain damage due to all his tough fights -- Limond, Gomez, Prescott, Maidana, Peterson, and now Garcia. He was hurt in all of them, and knocked down in four of those fights. Maidana also gave him a terrible beating in the tenth round. If he gets stopped again, I think he should retire. He needs to think of his long term health.
I never liked Khan but he took it like champ and kept fighting. No excuses in the interview afterward. I thought he showed a lot of class in defeat.
Fair point, but if I was him id wait to see whats happening with the IBF belt. If he got hold of that then his stock would be huge, and he would be a good opponent for Pac at 147 if he moved up after and got a win under his belt, I think TopRank would be happy for that one to happen as well.
Fighters are supposed to show heart. I see no reason to commend a guy for doing what he's supposed to do. Khan was also supposed to win this fight. He was a big favorite. This is the third time he's lost to a significant underdog. He deserves to be criticised for his performance.
Plenty of fighters nowadays DON'T show heart and look for the ***** way out. Pretty funny to hear you talk about who deserves to be criticized for having heart when your avatar is of a guy who fights maybe one time a year, and takes 2-year vacations.
It's BigReg, so it comes with the territory. If it was Zab Judah instead of Khan he would be singing his praises.
As usual, if Khan boxed carefully from the outside, used the jab and outpointed Garcia, people would call him boring and afraid to engage. When Khan slugs it out and gets KO'd, he is a china-chinned hype job.
And they are routinely criticised for it. The reason they receive such harsh criticism is because we expect them to show heart in the ring and fight until the end. So if you want to commend a guy for fighting with heart, then that means that you think doing so is something that isn't expected. That of course would mean that you would have no problem with a guy showing a lack of heart and basically giving up when it gets tough. That's fine, but what does that have to do with heart? I'd like you to show me any in ring examples of Mayweather lacking heart. A lack of activity has nothing to do with heart. It has to do with desire. You can criticize the guy for not having the desire to fight more often, but questioning his heart makes no sense.