From the Ali vs. Cotto RBR thread, my first thoughts in the aftermath sketched out: During the match I remember thinking "Wow, so this is the closest we shall ever have gotten to a contest between Cotto and Khan (two near-contemporaries who just missed each other campaigning at welter by a few years) Ordinarily you would expect the Pakistani-Briton to be the A-Side due to his more built-up name and having amassed superior drawing power, but the Yemeni-American has the WBO title at 154lbs and Khan would be coming in a) empty-handed, in terms of hardware, b) coming off a loss, c) with zero wins at the weight, and d) with two full years' worth of rust, as of fight night...considering this fight probably wouldn't be announced until February at the earliest to give the new champ adequate rest and recovery time from the hard-fought win over Cotto, and Khan notoriously refuses to box with less than a full 2-3 months' training camp. Both have essentially one single night's experience in the division, with Ali making his official debut versus Cotto (technically, however, both he and Jorge Silva missed weight by a couple of pounds for their scheduled welterweight 10-rounder on the Miura vs. Roman card in January) while Khan fought Canelo at more or less this same class' limit even though it was for the middleweight green belt. 155 is a lot closer to 154 than 160. Ali fought on extremely competitive terms with Cotto (most had it a draw or narrowly 115-113 in either direction), while Khan started very strong and was up on most fans' cards when knocked out by the much larger Canelo, managing to soundly outbox the Mexican star early.
Not sure how much Khan has left. I think Khan's skill ceiling is higher, both can hurt each other. Think Khan wins though if he's even 70% of what he was back in the day. Winner faces Thurman or Spence.
I think Khan gets caught and stopped in the middle rounds, Ali took Cotto's power shots well, I think his chin is slightly better at 154, and his power is greatly improved, he had Cotto reeling on several occasions, far worst than anything Canelo landed on him, now think about what Canelo did to Khan.....
Both are kind of front-runners, so what happens in the early rounds? Then who assumes command as it goes deeper?
Amir Khan is faster, but the first solid punch and he is knocked out. Khan should of fought someone like Lamont Peterson.
Khan wins easily on his best day. but not sure if his best day exists anymore. I'd still pick Amir in this one though.
When boxers start appearing on reality TV shows, there is often no way back for them. Khan fought so infrequently up until his last fight, that the ring rust is even worse than a typical 2 year break.
Shocked how one-sided the poll is and kicking myself for not identifying the whole mirror image aspect of this matchup and making a poll thread BEFORE the Cotto fight (to gauge how much these current votes are the expected knee-jerk trend with the memory of Ali stunning Cotto numerous times still fresh in mind) Admittedly, for me personally had this poll been made 24 hours or more ago I would have probably tipped Ali but not by stoppage necessarily.
I feel like yesterday, when TWK was still mostly known as "that guy Jessie Vargas knocked out (the only guy, in 6 years )" we'd be seeing a lot more votes for Khan, warts and all - even with a 2 year layoff and with just one fight above welter (and that being a stoppage loss, with no confidence-boosting or rust-shaking tuneups since to buffer it) I'm not singling out anybody in particular or excluding myself from having last night's performance impact my view of this relative to before - just saying that en masse boxing fans are reliably a very fickle group with a very short memory and it bums me out.
Honestly as of today I see it as close to 50-50, probably swapping rounds back and forth as they feel one another out, fencing with the jab at long range until someone or the other decides to get brave and try a sortie, at which point there will be lead vs. counter 1-2 exchanges in which SOMEONE gets hurt. That person may or may not recover and hurt or drop the other. Eventually something has to give because neither has the chin to stand up to all that many sharp 1-2s. Could be either that gets KTFO but I lean slightly toward it being Khan.
Another similarity: (on top of the stylistic ones I outlined in the OP, and beIng frontrunners who are capable of getting a second wind but undeniably at their best with fresh legs in the first third of a championship distance) Both grew up idolizing Naseem Hamed. If he were to sit ringside I wonder for whom Naz would be rooting? Would nationality or heritage win out?
This. Khan is more skill and has more talent than Ali, but Khan hasn't stayed active and he isn't getting any younger.
True but people have as recently as this calendar year been talking (seriously) about matchups with Kell Brook and even - crazily, IMO - Saunders as if they were realistic possibilities and not horrific cherrypicks on which the savvy UK public wouldn't spend a shilling. A sizable minority, if memory serves have even tipped Khan - in 2017 - against Brook (though I haven't seen anybody suggest he'd get past BJS) I doubt I'm going to be alone in saying I would confidently and with no hesitation pick Brook to knock Ali spark out.
At his best I think Ali is a poor man's Khan. In his prime I think Khan would light Ali up, maybe even wreck him like he did Salita. His chin is a straight up turd, he does not make in-fight adjustments well, and he has certainly lost to a fighter far smaller and worse than Ali in Prescott, so it's tough to really call and could see Khan getting put on a poster for the wrong reasons by Ali after being way up on judges cards. Nobody knows what Khan has left at this point, he's had a long layoff and nobody but him really knows if he will be back, but at his best he was absolutely a world-class fighter who's talent, skill, and weaknesses were all at the extreme edge of the spectrum. Basically, at his best, he made some fighters look foolish and amateurish that many thought he would lose to and lost a couple that most thought he would win. Right now Ali by a not even competitive KO. Prime Khan I think mollywhops the dog s*** out of the current Ali.