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So with the fight coming on saturday, we are wondering who will win and who will look good come fight night. I watched their fights in order to analyze their techniques and flaws. You might of read my other analysis of GGG vs Alvarez, but I think I should of came up with this fight instead. Honestly it was easy to overlook khan because he is not at the level of GGG or Alvarez. So here we go.
I will start with Alvarez, since I watched his fights recently. To be honest Alvarez's fights took a long time to watch, why? Well because he is not a knockout boxer/fighter. I watched 19 fights, starting with russian Marat Khuzeev, for the youth welterweight title. We must acknowledge that Alvarez is a gifted prodigious fighter, his pro debut was at a young age, 16 I believe. Since then he has not looked back. Not only is he gifted he has natural advantages: naturally strong, thick body structure and strong core (which is pretty important). With luck of the genes, he is a tough opponent for anyone. But what of his boxing style? Style: Static, power-counterpuncher. Yes, Alvarez is very much a counterpuncher, but he is not evasive or mobile. A bit lazy if you ask me. Even so, his counter punching is good because he baits, he sets up traps, he combos, and most importantly he has power to those counter attacks. His punching distance is from long to short distance. He throws hooks, uppercuts, and the 1-2 from afar. He can and has fought on the inside, but his money is on this long distance.
THE GOOD: He has power. As I mentioned earlier Alvarez seems to be naturally strong he can use his weight well. Good Jab. He has a really good jab, sometimes as an attack, throw away, combination ender, or to set up a combination. He throws combinations. He throws them when his opponent shells up, or during a counter and they hurt too. He can fight in a broken rhythm. When he throws combos, he can actually throw them in a broken rhythm, it makes his next attack unpredictable and hard to counter. He has creative combinations. When the opponent leaves himsel open while blocking, he can throw a wide variety of punches during a combination to get over the defense of his opponent. He can feint. Alvarez is an intelligent fighter, so if his opponent is inclined to block, Alvarez feints to get a reaction then he can attack. His percentage on landing feint attacks are pretty high, he has a trademark feint attack as well. The overhand right hook feint into the left uppercut. This attack has landed on Cotto, Lara and Angulo. He only uses this when he believes he has his opponent on the run or on the defense. He can pull jab or pull cross. He's done this many times even on floyd mayweather, but this attack is powerful, and he can also vary the counter with a strong right cross or an awesome uppercut. He baits himself. In Bruce Lee's Tao of Jeet Kun Do, he states that a fighter is great fighter if the fighter is willing to bait or draw his opponent in attacking, a highly skilled technique mostly used by counter punchers. He attacks from a long distance. This can be unpredictable and sometimes a surprising attack, making his 1-2 combo quite dangerous. Because of this long distance attack, if an opponent attacks, Alvarez can dodge and counter too. Alvarez has good waist movement. He can slip, roll, bob and weave, and use the philly shell. He uses this to gain a counter attack. He is grounded and balanced, hence majority of his punches are power punches. Great foot placement, he always has a good position to attack. He is comfortable being cornered or attacking on the backfoot (comfortable and looking good while doing this are two different things). He has fought famous, top-notch, and elite boxers. Giving him an experience edge at such a young age.
THE BAD: Alvarez is truly gifted but he comes with flaws. With all the good Alvarez can do sometimes these very few flaws can actually put him at a great disadvantage. Know this, this observation can resonate with us fledgling fighting practitioners. The most obvious flaw is his movement, because of his inclination of standing strong and well balanced, he is a static fighter. This can work against him because this makes Alvarez lazy, he waits for the opponent to attack him. If the opponent chooses to be evasive, in a sense of using the whole ring to move, Alvarez has to move, he is also not good at that. Alvarez cannot cut the ring, or move to catch the opponent. Once again this is due to his choice of fighting style. In reality Alvarez has only faced one evasive opponent, Erislandy Lara. As I watched their fight, I noticed that Lara moved, a lot, I mean he took advantage on how slow Alvarez moves. Lara is not the genius that some, to put it frankly, jaded boxing fans make him out to be. But we must admire a fundamental technique that Lara uses, hit and move. Its not slick but it is effective. Lara, just like Alvarez can fight from afar, better than Alvarez. I believe that Lara beat Alvarez by 2 points average because Lara is a fundamental boxer he landed more shots, but judges score could mean that Lara did more moving, not slipping or deflecting, than punching. Alvarez also has trouble with volume punchers, Leornard Tyner and surprisingly Austin Trout. On both these occasion Alvarez had to work hard to get the win. The style that Alvarez opts for can be ineffective, since he does need balance to punch and also balance for a check hook. He is use to fighting from a distance in a semi-bladed stance, take that away and he is sorta of a siting duck. Leornard was a lot of trouble, but he won that fight due to counters, but he was getting pushed. Trout on the other hand seemed to have the upper hand in some rounds, he actually brought the fight to Alvarez. Honestly the judges did cheat Trout with a lot of points. Alvarez would just stand there and Trout would work, it was blocked but if the judges think that moving around the ring is not points worthy, then surely just not doing anything at all is deserving of much worse. When Alvarez does attack when an opponent is blocking he does not move around the opponents position to get a new angle, he opts for a straight forward approach. Alvarez gets tired around round 5 or 6, even when he has won most rounds. Its pretty funny, since he actually does not move in most of his fights. This causes rounds of inactivity, if a better boxer were to face him this could be taken advantage of. What of his fight against Floyd? Well, that fight was more of a chess match, two intelligent fighters in the ring. Anime quality right there. But mayweather has movement.
Amir Khan is also a fighter who is gifted with natural physical attributes, he is tall, and has long ass monkey arms. Seriously, he can probably give a handshake without the leaning part. He is an olympic silver medalist, pro debuted around the same time as Alvarez, but Alvarez has been pro longer than Khan. He has wins over zab judah, maidana, Mallinagi, and Barrera. Also was under the Golden Boy Banner, or maybe still is. He was trained by Freddie roach as well. I watched sixteen of his fights, starting with his loss against Prescott. So he does have a semi good record, but not really elite level status. More obscure than anything.
THE GOOD: What is Khans boxing style? He is a mobile volume puncher, even with his new trainer, Virgil hunter old habits die hard. The luckiest thing he was birthed with, freakishly long reach, is used for punching at incredible speed. He dashes in cuts his distance a little short and comboes mainly in 1-2's very few hooks here and there. That distance cutting is key for his hands to move at optimal speed. It actually keeps his opponents on guard, from there he can actually cut an angle and look for the hook to the body, as a change in rhythm which he has done to Maidana and many unsuspecting opponents. No one expects for a person with long arms, which is visible, to cut his distance short and throw combos. You see a person with a spear and you assume that the person with the spear will stay where he is standing just right out of your reach, but bam! He lunges at you, catching you off guard. Khan is mobile as fuck and this adds difficulty to defeat Khan. He is in the opponents space; combos and then beautifully exits or he is far from the opponent and dashes in from a long distance with incredible speed. He uses the whole ring and moves with such grace. The volume punching is what makes him win the most points, and also the drive to constantly combo on his opponent. He never fails to add flair to his fights he always digs in to get the edge on points and look good to the judges. That being said, he is a very brave fighter, he can be reckless but from what I sense he lays everything on the line in order to get the W. Once he started to train under Virgil Hunter, his style did change a little bit. He used his long arms to keep opponents away, and countered more than usual. He has incredible stamina, for a guy that is as active as he is, he still finishes strong. Just like I said, old habits die hard, he still opts to dash in and combo. Which brings me too...
THE BAD: Khan is like a bad video game character boss, or some anime villain. He is so blinding fast but has weak defense and a weak chin which makes it quite laughable. When Khan opts to dash in and start his combos he does wind up here and there to start his onslaught. Even if he does not wind up his punches dashing cutting his arm distance short and leaving his face open for long combinations is dangerous. Incredibly juicy as it sounds to hit Khan in the chin, it is actually quite difficult to do, because he has fast hands and arguably fast foot movement. But if you see DANNY GARCIA VS KHAN, Garcia was dominating all the rounds because he timed khan from the start, he was countering khan. This made Khan gun shy and try to feint to get in and land, it did not matter what khan did because his flaws were already captured by Danny garcia. He did not stop and rethink his game plan but opted to be the aggressor. I dont think danny garcia is a great counter puncher be he did one hell of a job putting Khan down. In other words, Khan can get timed because he dashes in to start his combos, or leans in just a little to get started. Khan has little to none waist or head movement. The reason being is that he does have fast feet so he can evade trouble because he is quick. His fast hands are his defense as well. Which explains his losses to Peterson, Garcia, and Prescott. He keeps his head in the same position during, and after his combinations. His body as well (note: Maidana took advantage of this too, even though he was kind of dirty). Khan does not set up traps, in order to be a good boxer one must use his mind at the same time his body. He does not feint either in order to bait out an attack so he can attack unhindered. For being a fast fighter he doesnt seem to counter as much as he should. He opts to fight like Manny Pacquiao, who I think is a little more intelligent than Khan. But both are volume punchers. Khan may have some broken rhythm combinations, but Khan does not have enough in order to be unpredictable. He also is not creative with his combinations, its always his 1-2's being his main course of action. I know everyone wants me to say it, "Khan is chinny", well he might be but he can take some punishment. He has survived some near catastrophic losses but in the end he does not take punches to the chin well.
There isnt that much good to say about Khan, there are more bad things to say about him though. Over all his fight resume doesnt earn him much recognition. Here is the political and ethical section, this fight is a bit silly. Khan is not a star anymore, he never got that chance, his last fight was on PBC even though he was being showcased on showtime. Before he lost his fame, he was only a rising star. Luckily enough, he was under Golden Boy Promotions, I am surprised that oscar let khan stick around and I am also suprised that khan stuck around as well. During a Golovkin fight, I forget which one, you can see ALVAREZ, OSCAR AND KHAN sitting in a row watching Golovkin beating the shit out of an opponent. A precursor to this controversial fight. All this time Khan wanted that spotlight calling out Elite level fighters while not dealing with his own weight class. Whats even crazier is that Oscar wants Alvarez and Khan to fight because it will bring in the fucking money. Khan wants this fight because he wants that chance to be recognized as Elite, and also the money. Alvarez wants this fight because, well I dont know. Its a shame really because if Alvarez does win, it will go like this: "of course alvarez won Khan is small guy, alvarez just wanted to duck GGG". A poor decision on Alvarez part. But if he does win its not because alvarez is just too strong, its because Alvarez is elite, what is he doing with some one lower ranking in the ring?
THE VERDICT: Now here is the verdict, under the perfect care of Virgil Hunter, Khan has learned some new things in boxing, such as defense and stiff jabs. If Khan can be evasive and mobile through out the entire fight Khan can look good. Ala ERISLANDY LARA STYLE which gave Alvarez the hardest time. Here is the kicker though, judges hate the fundamental technique of stick and moooooooove around the ring. So khan has to work hard. So Khan has to turn up the fire, and dash in and out with combos. Which is good because Alvarez also had trouble with same height or little taller volume punchers such as Tyner and Trout. Alvarez can look more of a slouch when the opposition is aggressive. But alvarez is a counter puncher and he hurt Tyner, and he did get a knockdown over Trout from a long distance. Trout was cheated out of a lot points, in my opinion, even though trout did throw more punches than alvarez, which means that no matter how you cut this fight ALVAREZ IS THE CLEAR WINNER. The funny thing is that Alvarez does not need a knock out, he has his skill and more importantly he has the judges on his side. Khan is between a rock and a hard place, if he decides to be evasive the judges wont like it, if he decides to engage Alvarez he might get fucking KO'D, or he might get countered and get hurt, even if Khan can land during those exchanges they wont be effective. Thus not getting him the decision. Khan's only chance is to get the upset knockout, WHICH SHOULD BE A HOOK TO THE BODY, but I hardly see that happening. Sure Alvarez might get pushed to a certain point but Khan is the one pushing his skill and body to the limit. So let me say it again, Alvarez wins this fight any which way. Khan needs knockout.
Thank you for reading my thread, I hope it does not die. I hope we can all discuss this like intelligent hairless monkeys.
I will start with Alvarez, since I watched his fights recently. To be honest Alvarez's fights took a long time to watch, why? Well because he is not a knockout boxer/fighter. I watched 19 fights, starting with russian Marat Khuzeev, for the youth welterweight title. We must acknowledge that Alvarez is a gifted prodigious fighter, his pro debut was at a young age, 16 I believe. Since then he has not looked back. Not only is he gifted he has natural advantages: naturally strong, thick body structure and strong core (which is pretty important). With luck of the genes, he is a tough opponent for anyone. But what of his boxing style? Style: Static, power-counterpuncher. Yes, Alvarez is very much a counterpuncher, but he is not evasive or mobile. A bit lazy if you ask me. Even so, his counter punching is good because he baits, he sets up traps, he combos, and most importantly he has power to those counter attacks. His punching distance is from long to short distance. He throws hooks, uppercuts, and the 1-2 from afar. He can and has fought on the inside, but his money is on this long distance.
THE GOOD: He has power. As I mentioned earlier Alvarez seems to be naturally strong he can use his weight well. Good Jab. He has a really good jab, sometimes as an attack, throw away, combination ender, or to set up a combination. He throws combinations. He throws them when his opponent shells up, or during a counter and they hurt too. He can fight in a broken rhythm. When he throws combos, he can actually throw them in a broken rhythm, it makes his next attack unpredictable and hard to counter. He has creative combinations. When the opponent leaves himsel open while blocking, he can throw a wide variety of punches during a combination to get over the defense of his opponent. He can feint. Alvarez is an intelligent fighter, so if his opponent is inclined to block, Alvarez feints to get a reaction then he can attack. His percentage on landing feint attacks are pretty high, he has a trademark feint attack as well. The overhand right hook feint into the left uppercut. This attack has landed on Cotto, Lara and Angulo. He only uses this when he believes he has his opponent on the run or on the defense. He can pull jab or pull cross. He's done this many times even on floyd mayweather, but this attack is powerful, and he can also vary the counter with a strong right cross or an awesome uppercut. He baits himself. In Bruce Lee's Tao of Jeet Kun Do, he states that a fighter is great fighter if the fighter is willing to bait or draw his opponent in attacking, a highly skilled technique mostly used by counter punchers. He attacks from a long distance. This can be unpredictable and sometimes a surprising attack, making his 1-2 combo quite dangerous. Because of this long distance attack, if an opponent attacks, Alvarez can dodge and counter too. Alvarez has good waist movement. He can slip, roll, bob and weave, and use the philly shell. He uses this to gain a counter attack. He is grounded and balanced, hence majority of his punches are power punches. Great foot placement, he always has a good position to attack. He is comfortable being cornered or attacking on the backfoot (comfortable and looking good while doing this are two different things). He has fought famous, top-notch, and elite boxers. Giving him an experience edge at such a young age.
THE BAD: Alvarez is truly gifted but he comes with flaws. With all the good Alvarez can do sometimes these very few flaws can actually put him at a great disadvantage. Know this, this observation can resonate with us fledgling fighting practitioners. The most obvious flaw is his movement, because of his inclination of standing strong and well balanced, he is a static fighter. This can work against him because this makes Alvarez lazy, he waits for the opponent to attack him. If the opponent chooses to be evasive, in a sense of using the whole ring to move, Alvarez has to move, he is also not good at that. Alvarez cannot cut the ring, or move to catch the opponent. Once again this is due to his choice of fighting style. In reality Alvarez has only faced one evasive opponent, Erislandy Lara. As I watched their fight, I noticed that Lara moved, a lot, I mean he took advantage on how slow Alvarez moves. Lara is not the genius that some, to put it frankly, jaded boxing fans make him out to be. But we must admire a fundamental technique that Lara uses, hit and move. Its not slick but it is effective. Lara, just like Alvarez can fight from afar, better than Alvarez. I believe that Lara beat Alvarez by 2 points average because Lara is a fundamental boxer he landed more shots, but judges score could mean that Lara did more moving, not slipping or deflecting, than punching. Alvarez also has trouble with volume punchers, Leornard Tyner and surprisingly Austin Trout. On both these occasion Alvarez had to work hard to get the win. The style that Alvarez opts for can be ineffective, since he does need balance to punch and also balance for a check hook. He is use to fighting from a distance in a semi-bladed stance, take that away and he is sorta of a siting duck. Leornard was a lot of trouble, but he won that fight due to counters, but he was getting pushed. Trout on the other hand seemed to have the upper hand in some rounds, he actually brought the fight to Alvarez. Honestly the judges did cheat Trout with a lot of points. Alvarez would just stand there and Trout would work, it was blocked but if the judges think that moving around the ring is not points worthy, then surely just not doing anything at all is deserving of much worse. When Alvarez does attack when an opponent is blocking he does not move around the opponents position to get a new angle, he opts for a straight forward approach. Alvarez gets tired around round 5 or 6, even when he has won most rounds. Its pretty funny, since he actually does not move in most of his fights. This causes rounds of inactivity, if a better boxer were to face him this could be taken advantage of. What of his fight against Floyd? Well, that fight was more of a chess match, two intelligent fighters in the ring. Anime quality right there. But mayweather has movement.
Amir Khan is also a fighter who is gifted with natural physical attributes, he is tall, and has long ass monkey arms. Seriously, he can probably give a handshake without the leaning part. He is an olympic silver medalist, pro debuted around the same time as Alvarez, but Alvarez has been pro longer than Khan. He has wins over zab judah, maidana, Mallinagi, and Barrera. Also was under the Golden Boy Banner, or maybe still is. He was trained by Freddie roach as well. I watched sixteen of his fights, starting with his loss against Prescott. So he does have a semi good record, but not really elite level status. More obscure than anything.
THE GOOD: What is Khans boxing style? He is a mobile volume puncher, even with his new trainer, Virgil hunter old habits die hard. The luckiest thing he was birthed with, freakishly long reach, is used for punching at incredible speed. He dashes in cuts his distance a little short and comboes mainly in 1-2's very few hooks here and there. That distance cutting is key for his hands to move at optimal speed. It actually keeps his opponents on guard, from there he can actually cut an angle and look for the hook to the body, as a change in rhythm which he has done to Maidana and many unsuspecting opponents. No one expects for a person with long arms, which is visible, to cut his distance short and throw combos. You see a person with a spear and you assume that the person with the spear will stay where he is standing just right out of your reach, but bam! He lunges at you, catching you off guard. Khan is mobile as fuck and this adds difficulty to defeat Khan. He is in the opponents space; combos and then beautifully exits or he is far from the opponent and dashes in from a long distance with incredible speed. He uses the whole ring and moves with such grace. The volume punching is what makes him win the most points, and also the drive to constantly combo on his opponent. He never fails to add flair to his fights he always digs in to get the edge on points and look good to the judges. That being said, he is a very brave fighter, he can be reckless but from what I sense he lays everything on the line in order to get the W. Once he started to train under Virgil Hunter, his style did change a little bit. He used his long arms to keep opponents away, and countered more than usual. He has incredible stamina, for a guy that is as active as he is, he still finishes strong. Just like I said, old habits die hard, he still opts to dash in and combo. Which brings me too...
THE BAD: Khan is like a bad video game character boss, or some anime villain. He is so blinding fast but has weak defense and a weak chin which makes it quite laughable. When Khan opts to dash in and start his combos he does wind up here and there to start his onslaught. Even if he does not wind up his punches dashing cutting his arm distance short and leaving his face open for long combinations is dangerous. Incredibly juicy as it sounds to hit Khan in the chin, it is actually quite difficult to do, because he has fast hands and arguably fast foot movement. But if you see DANNY GARCIA VS KHAN, Garcia was dominating all the rounds because he timed khan from the start, he was countering khan. This made Khan gun shy and try to feint to get in and land, it did not matter what khan did because his flaws were already captured by Danny garcia. He did not stop and rethink his game plan but opted to be the aggressor. I dont think danny garcia is a great counter puncher be he did one hell of a job putting Khan down. In other words, Khan can get timed because he dashes in to start his combos, or leans in just a little to get started. Khan has little to none waist or head movement. The reason being is that he does have fast feet so he can evade trouble because he is quick. His fast hands are his defense as well. Which explains his losses to Peterson, Garcia, and Prescott. He keeps his head in the same position during, and after his combinations. His body as well (note: Maidana took advantage of this too, even though he was kind of dirty). Khan does not set up traps, in order to be a good boxer one must use his mind at the same time his body. He does not feint either in order to bait out an attack so he can attack unhindered. For being a fast fighter he doesnt seem to counter as much as he should. He opts to fight like Manny Pacquiao, who I think is a little more intelligent than Khan. But both are volume punchers. Khan may have some broken rhythm combinations, but Khan does not have enough in order to be unpredictable. He also is not creative with his combinations, its always his 1-2's being his main course of action. I know everyone wants me to say it, "Khan is chinny", well he might be but he can take some punishment. He has survived some near catastrophic losses but in the end he does not take punches to the chin well.
There isnt that much good to say about Khan, there are more bad things to say about him though. Over all his fight resume doesnt earn him much recognition. Here is the political and ethical section, this fight is a bit silly. Khan is not a star anymore, he never got that chance, his last fight was on PBC even though he was being showcased on showtime. Before he lost his fame, he was only a rising star. Luckily enough, he was under Golden Boy Promotions, I am surprised that oscar let khan stick around and I am also suprised that khan stuck around as well. During a Golovkin fight, I forget which one, you can see ALVAREZ, OSCAR AND KHAN sitting in a row watching Golovkin beating the shit out of an opponent. A precursor to this controversial fight. All this time Khan wanted that spotlight calling out Elite level fighters while not dealing with his own weight class. Whats even crazier is that Oscar wants Alvarez and Khan to fight because it will bring in the fucking money. Khan wants this fight because he wants that chance to be recognized as Elite, and also the money. Alvarez wants this fight because, well I dont know. Its a shame really because if Alvarez does win, it will go like this: "of course alvarez won Khan is small guy, alvarez just wanted to duck GGG". A poor decision on Alvarez part. But if he does win its not because alvarez is just too strong, its because Alvarez is elite, what is he doing with some one lower ranking in the ring?
THE VERDICT: Now here is the verdict, under the perfect care of Virgil Hunter, Khan has learned some new things in boxing, such as defense and stiff jabs. If Khan can be evasive and mobile through out the entire fight Khan can look good. Ala ERISLANDY LARA STYLE which gave Alvarez the hardest time. Here is the kicker though, judges hate the fundamental technique of stick and moooooooove around the ring. So khan has to work hard. So Khan has to turn up the fire, and dash in and out with combos. Which is good because Alvarez also had trouble with same height or little taller volume punchers such as Tyner and Trout. Alvarez can look more of a slouch when the opposition is aggressive. But alvarez is a counter puncher and he hurt Tyner, and he did get a knockdown over Trout from a long distance. Trout was cheated out of a lot points, in my opinion, even though trout did throw more punches than alvarez, which means that no matter how you cut this fight ALVAREZ IS THE CLEAR WINNER. The funny thing is that Alvarez does not need a knock out, he has his skill and more importantly he has the judges on his side. Khan is between a rock and a hard place, if he decides to be evasive the judges wont like it, if he decides to engage Alvarez he might get fucking KO'D, or he might get countered and get hurt, even if Khan can land during those exchanges they wont be effective. Thus not getting him the decision. Khan's only chance is to get the upset knockout, WHICH SHOULD BE A HOOK TO THE BODY, but I hardly see that happening. Sure Alvarez might get pushed to a certain point but Khan is the one pushing his skill and body to the limit. So let me say it again, Alvarez wins this fight any which way. Khan needs knockout.
Thank you for reading my thread, I hope it does not die. I hope we can all discuss this like intelligent hairless monkeys.
