In the Maidana fight, he was moving and hitting, keeping his hands up and blocking shots and even scored a KD with a beautiful LH to the body. He kept his composure when he got hit and never deviated from the gameplan. If Virgil can bring back the form that he had then, I don't really see Amir improving beyond that.
I don't think he looked that good in the Maidana fight. He was getting hit with repeated overhand rights, maybe even as early as the first round, if I remember right. Maidana was timing him and Khan kept moving into that swing. Not only that, but he had trouble with the uppercuts on the inside -- he wasn't able to block or neutralise them properly, and just tried to shell up while not moving. The KD was very good though, yeah. He placed that punch well. He also did well to get through the fight, because it was a bad style match up for him. Khan's best performance was probably the Malignaggi fight.
I gotta' agree with Outboxer on this. Aside from his speed, power and intensity, I wasn't that impress with the Khan we saw against Maidana. In fact, that was the beginning of the end of his development under Roach. All of his subsequent fights, bar Judah, have been sloppy and careless: - McCloskey - Peterson - Garcia Best performance so far has been against Malignaggi where he was relaxed and settled enough to work his jab and pick his shots wisely. I sometimes think that's the kind of fighter we'd see in Khan if he didn't have such an abysmal chin. Against Malignaggi he didn't have to worry about getting hit by something hard, and so he didn't resort to his panicking, kangaroo style that often puts him in trouble.
Good points, I'd have to agree with Malignaggi being his best performance but then, he didn't have to be worried about getting cracked a good one.
If thats as good as Khan can get that I expect many more Olympic medalists and World Champs to come out of England and put their belts on the line against top opposition in America.
I think he looked like **** against Maidana. I think were gonna see a more mature smarter Khan in the ring. It still doesnt make him elite.
Amir's peaked. And his peak wasn't all that either. For all of his handspeed, he's tremendously ugly to watch. Honestly, I think Mayorga is more pleasing to watch from a purist standpoint. Amir makes these ridiculous jittery/nervous movements where it almost looks like he's in a weird state of constant full-body twitching, his punches aren't thrown from his guard and lack crispness and straightness, his combinations are more or less inaccurate flurries, and his movement looks more like running and quick retreating than educated angles to keep his opponents off balance or trap-setting to set guys up for stuff.
