Can king Amir Khan Rain Again?

On Saturday night Amir Khan steps back into the ring after having two years out. So in this post I will be looking at his career the highs and the lows to see if King Khan can rain again.

He burst on to the professional scene after becoming something of a national hero after winning a silver medal at the 2004 Olympic Games. He went on to make his professional debut against David Bailey the following summer a fight he won with a first round stoppage

After making the perfect start to his career he then went on to win his next 18 fights, 13 of them by knockout, and people where starting to talk about him been the next big thing in boxing but disaster struck on that faithful night in Manchester in 2008 when he took on Breidis Prescott a fight that everyone thought he would win early in fact he was getting criticised by many in the boxing world because they thought that this fight was too easy for him and they wanted to see him take a step up in opposition. However it was far from an easy night at the office for him as this happened:

After that devastating defeat to Prescott those same people that where calling for him to take a harder fight where now questioning his heart, chin and boxing ability. After the Prescott defeat he decided that a change needed to be made so he rebuilt his whole team and took himself to America and started training with Jorge Rubio however their relationship didn’t last long before he moved to the Wild Card gym under the tutelage of Freddie Roach and it was here that he started to get his career back on track.

He had his comeback fight on the 6th December 2008 against Oisin Fagan a fight he won with a 2nd round knockout. However despite getting back to winning ways there were still some questioning if in fact he could still make it at the top level. So in his next fight he showed the world that he could beat top level opposition when he took on Marco Antonio Barrera at the time Barrera was ranked number 1 with the WBO and this was seen as a very dangerous fight for Khan to take, but what happened on fight night sent shockwaves through the boxing world:

After quite frankly destroying Barrera in side of 5 rounds people where once again talking about him fighting for a world title it was as if the Prescott fight never happened even though there were still some questions a round whether or not his jaw could stand up to a full blooded shot. However in his very next fight he got the chance to make his boy hood dream of been a world champion come true. On the 18th July 2009 he fought Andriy Kotelinik for the WBA Light Welterweight title, a fight where once again he would put on another clinical boxing display:

Again out boxing Kotelinik for the whole fight his career continued to go from strength to strength as he then became the WBA Super champion and in 2011 he got the chance to become the unified Light Welterweight champion, when he took on Zab Judah for both his WBA super title and the IBF title. He came into the fight a 3/1 favourite with the bookies and on fight night he didn’t disappoint. He won the fight inside 5 rounds after Khan landed a big body shot and Judah hit the canvas doubled over in pain, to me it look like a good body shot however Judah spent most of his post fight interview complaining that the shot was low.

At this point in time he seriously looked unbeatable but all that changed on the 10th December 2011 when he defended his titles against the highly rated Lamont Peterson, in one of the worst examples of judging I have ever seen, and of course who can forget the man in the hat controversy that surrounded the aftermath of this fight but decide for yourself.

As you can see Khan clearly won the fight I had it 114-111 on my card, even the boxing pundits at ringside didn’t agree with the official score cards. ESPN scored it 114-111 and both The Ring Magazine and HBO scored it 113-112 all in Khans favour. Due to the controversy surrounding this fight a rematch was ordered and made, however in May 2012 Peterson failed a drugs test and he was stripped of the title and the rematch never took place.

On the 14th July 2012 he was in another world title unification fight for the WBA Super, WBC and The Ring Magazine titles. Although at the time Danny Garcia was undefeated Khan came into the fight a heavy favourite, he was seen as been a level above Garcia but on fight night Garcia shocked the world:

 

After two back to back defeats his career looked all but over he parted company with Freddie Roach and teamed up with Virgil Hunter and their relationship got off to the best possible start with a 10th round knockout victory over Carlos Molina. He then return back home to the UK to face Joulio Diaz up at Welterweight a fight he won by unanimous decision. He then went on to win his next 3 fights by unanimous decision against Luis Collazo, Devon Alexander and Chris Algieri.

Then on the 7th May 2016 he made the very surprising move to move up two weight divisions to Middleweight and challenge Canelo Alvarez for the WBC title, and to be honest the result was no surprise:

After losing to Alvarez he decided to take some time away from boxing to have surgery on a long term hand injury, and to deal with some personal problems outside the ring. Now he’s back with a new promotional team in Matchroom and he’s going to be fighting back in the UK for the first time in 5 years. I started this post by asking can he rain again and you would have to say yes he can, he’s got the right people backing him to once again become world champion. However this is definitely the last chance saloon if he loses on Saturday I think that will be the last time we see him in a boxing ring.

Don’t forget to check out my Fight Night preview and review of all of Saturdays action. Please comment below and let me know what you guys think.