WBA Boxing

The Germans are coming, the Germans are coming! Well sort of, Stuttgart's Gennady Golovkin (23-0 20 KO's), by way of Kazakhstan, will make his U.S. and HBO debut on September 1.  Golovkin, the WBA "regular" champion, will be defending his title against fellow European Grzegorz Proksa (28-1 21 KO's) in Verona, N.Y.

Golovkin was supposed to be attempting to unify his title with WBO middleweight titleholder Russia's Dmitry Pirog.  However, the Russian unfortunately suffered an injury in training camp and had to withdraw from the fight.

Golovkin may just be the most exciting middleweight you can see in September. Which is saying a lot considering Sergio Martinez is taking on Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. just two weeks later.

In his last outing, Golovkin completely decimated his opponent Makoto Fuchigami. Over the course of three rounds, he bloodied and battered him, scoring two knockdowns before the referee had decided he had seen enough.

"He has the Mike Tyson effect where you don't want to go to the refrigerator because the other guy is going to get knocked out, "Golovkin's trainer Abel Sanchez said about his fighter's style: "He's not as reckless let's just say as Mike Tyson was, but he definitely hits hard with both hands, and we have modified his style to be an aggressive fighter and to come forward and make it a fight."

With a nearly 87 percent knockout ratio, Golovkin will surely excite American fans and may just become a staple of HBO because of his fan-friendly style.

His trainer believes that after September 1, fans will be salivating to see more of Golovkin: "As a fight fan, or as an HBO subscriber, or a Pay Per View buyer, you should be able to say that's a fight I want to take off work for to see," Sanchez said.

He is not just an exciting pro fighter, he was also a very decorated amateur. Golovkin represented his native Kazakhstan in the 2004 Olympics, winning a silver medal. He also holds wins over Andy Lee, Andre Dirrell, Lucian Bute, and current IBF middleweight titleholder Daniel Geale.

For the past two years, the Golovkin camp has been trying to make a fight with Felix Sturm, the WBA "Super" champion, but to no avail. Sturm has a very lucrative contract with a German television station that is contingent on him remaining champion, according to Sanchez: "He (Sturm) understands that his days are numbered," Sanchez added.

In just a few weeks time, American fans will get to decide on their own just how exciting Gennady Golovkin really is. Sanchez for one doesn't think the fans will be disappointed, "I think right now we are just scratching the surface of how good he could be," Sanchez said.

Michael Walters is a Contributor for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained first-hand.

You can follow Michael Walters on twitter @MWalters202

After suffering his recent loss to Danny Garcia, Amir Khan has been on the bad end of media attention. In his numerous recent interviews, Khan has said too many things that he shouldn’t have, and has slowly dug a social hole for himself, a hole which will be very hard for him to climb out of.

The most recent topic he had talked about a few weeks ago was the fact that he was not too happy with the way Freddie Roach had been treating him, and how Freddie was not devoting the proper attention to Khan when Pacquiao’s fight was coming up.

Later, Freddie Roach stated that he had met with team Khan, and that everything was fine, as the topic of anyone getting fired was not a part of their meeting. Roach hinted that there might be a few changes as far as their training goes, but nothing too specific or major.

Now, it seems as though Khan might actually make that move, and let Freddie Roach go as his trainer.

Who will replace Freddie if Khan decides to look elsewhere?

Apparently, according to a report on ESPN, Khan has recently told Sky Sports that Wladimir Klitschko’s trainer Emanuel Steward has approached Khan in hopes of getting that job:

“I've had so many trainers approach me in the past week: Steward is the main one who's approached me. Many trainers have said they can make me into a big, unbeatable fighter. It's all about taking my time on this; it's a big decision to make. I'm still with Freddie at the moment, but in a week's time things might change. It's all about seeing who might suit my style, who might help me on my offence, who might help me on my defense. I think I'm one of the best offensive fighters in the world; I just need to work on my defense. I really think to be one of the leading fighters, you need to have both. There are going to be a lot of things I'm going to change, but you will see a new Amir Khan."

Again, Khan proclaimed himself to be one of the best offensive fighters in the world, which is not only cocky, but is socially punishable when he is unable to show it in the ring.

Can Steward mold Khan into a better fighter? Maybe he can and maybe he can’t, but overall, Roach failed at nothing with Amir. Because Khan is unable to mentally handle a loss, which is exactly the driving force behind his radical moves and ideas, he is making career defining choices. Roach does well with all his fighters, thus when someone criticizes Roach for his ability to train and prepare his pupils, I tend to ignore.

Steward would definitely change things up, and impart his own way of training and preparing Khan for his future bouts, but how would Khan be different? If Amir doesn’t look good in his next fight, would he then go on yet another search for a new and better trainer?

Changing things up so fast is not a good idea and is more likely to backfire than prove to be beneficial. When things go sideways in life, we all look for a change and a quick fix, but why would one want to make a change to something that has thus far, out of many repetitions, failed only once? Amir himself is to blame for his loss to Garcia, and the only way to improve, is to sit down with Roach, point out the flaws and go to work.

I hope to see Amir back in the ring sometime this year, and I sure hope it’s against a formidable opponent who can, if beaten by Khan, elevate Amir back to the top of the ladder. 

I remember watching Maidana versus Alexander; it was hard to deal with. Things looked bad for Maidana, who was about to topple many times during the fight. Alexander hacked away at Maidana using lateral movement and fast jabs which he worked into clever combinations helping to win him the bout. Watching how Khan's fight with Danny Garcia ended, I thought about what he did wrong. 

Amir was hitting hard with speed, but used limited combinations and almost no lateral movement, rarely protecting his head. His mind trapping his body convincing him to fight like a brawler, even though his technical boxing skills helped him to win many of his fights. Then I thought about the pressure put on him by his opponent’s father Angel and the unresolved battle with Lamont Peterson. Amir Khan has been attacked in the past, ridiculed and more or less disliked by people for the only adversity he was born with: being a Muslim.

States away watching the fight on TV, I saw Amir fighting on, even after being knocked down. His heart and determination wouldn’t allow him to lose without giving his all. Khan has never backed down from a fight even when he could have, something his critics fail to realize or purposely overlook. Watching Amir fight, there was a look in his eyes during the bout with Garcia that I understood all too well. 

His eyes looked the same way mine did, watching the press event with Angel Garcia proclaiming his God was better than Amir’s. Under my own anger being a Muslim “Pakistanian," Angel put the devil in front of my face and that of every sensible person throughout the world.  It may have helped if he knew that that we are not “Pakistanian,” correct term being Pakistani.  Just like Angel is not a peurtoricus, but I’m sure he knew that with all that college education under his belt, tucked in safely next to his gun. 

Telling me right here in Philly he’s never seen one of us that can fight? Sending food and supplies after his verbal bombs drop telling Khan he’s no Prince Naseem?  Angel's George Bush inspired speech lacked intelligence, as he is a Christian by default whose country Puerto Rico used massive forceful conversions of people into Christianity. Angels God than that he seems to understand and love so much was forced on him.

I and many other Pakistanis are not Muslim by default. We are not converts, nor has our faith been forced upon us. I have yet to hear about one of us walking around converting people like a Jehovah witness, let alone by force. I imagine Amir going into the fight; hate against him approved and validated during the press conference as nothing more than an unconventional method used to rattle his cage.  Khan, goated into a fight of passive aggression with his mind distracted and clouded. A testament to the psychological warfare America is known for embracing in order to secure a win. 

Prior to this fight, Amir officially lost the decision to a juiced up Lamont Peterson, who lunged at him with no end like the boogey man. Peterson’s positive test for steroids was obvious to me as Peterson had never taken hard hits like Khans and kept coming, definitely not during his fight with Victor Ortiz. A knockdown by Khan in the early rounds as he battled on should have won him the fight.

Many people failed to give Khan the credit he deserved for the fight even though he was the unofficial winner similar to the way Manny was against Bradley. I believe it was not only the lack of validation from the boxing world for his amazing display of skill and dedication against Peterson, but also the physiological effect on the mind and body of  having to fight a juiced up stalking Lamont that made Khan fight  so differently with Garcia. I began to ask myself more questions about what happened at the press conference.

Yes Danny Garcia won, but at what cost? Why was Danny’s father Angel allowed to instigate his own Spanish Inquisition on Amir live in front of the whole world watching? Why was Angel's crusading rant allowed to happen? Why wasn’t he told to leave? No sanctions were placed, not even a proverbial slap on the wrist for insulting Amir’s faith and that of the world over. Certainly nothing pointed towards a solution as far as preventing something like this from happening again. It disgusted me to see Angel's hate swept under the rug, but it hurt me more to see the institution of boxing allowing so much negativity to be placed on an amazing, young talented fighter of Khan’s caliber for nothing more than him  being a practicing Muslim.

Once again, racism and psychological warfare of a bigoted manner was permitted, allowed, and approved to happen to another talented Muslim. But none of us save for this writer/producer/rapper, felt the need to say it or fight for it. Many thanks to ESPN writer Dan Rafael, his editorial on Amir Khan showing such class after his defeat to Danny Garcia was heartwarming, truthful, and very informative.

Farid is also a hiphop artist/producer from Philadelphia, Political Assasin. You can find him online at www.thepoliticalassasin.com

It seems like Ricky Hatton might very well be the next possible opponent for Amir Khan, since Khan’s recent conqueror Danny Garcia will be fighting Erik Morales once again on October 20, 2012 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, as reported by Richard Schaefer on RingTV.com.

Schaefer stated:

The main event is going to be Danny Garcia, obviously the Puerto Rican from Philadelphia, and Erik Morales, the Mexican. Erik feels that in his last fight, that when he came off of [gall bladder] surgery, he wasn't at his best. He's convinced that he's going to beat Danny Garcia this time around, and you have the classic Puerto Rican-Mexican showdown.

While many boxing fans had expected and more importantly hoped for a rematch between Khan and Garcia, I cannot blame Garcia for giving the much older Morales another shot at his belts, since Erik did much better than Amir in his fight against Danny.

Of course there will always be excuses, and Morale’s tale about his gallbladder removal is yet another one. It is absolutely possible that it did indeed affect his performance, and maybe even prevented him from winning the fight, but a loss to a much younger and hungrier fighter didn’t require any sort of damage control from Morales.   

In their last fight in March of 2012, Garcia was able to send Morales to the canvas in Round 11, but being a seasoned warrior Morales had not problem getting up and resuming the bout. This time around, Garcia will enter the ring with yet more experience, while Morales will have to depend and hope that time doesn’t show itself during the match.

Truthfully, counting out fighters such as Morales is never a good idea for their opposition, as experience can sometimes throw a curveball at any given time. I expect to see a good action packed fight come October.

Other names mentioned to be pursued for this event were:  Paulie Malignaggi, Peter Quillin, Danny Jacobs, Dmitriy Salita , and Eddie Gomez.

After suffering his loss against Danny Garcia, Amir Khan has been faced with a wave of criticism and disappointment from his fans.

A loss like this, at this point in time, means very little. After all, any fighter could end up in such a position at a time like this in their career.

When Lennox Lewis got knocked out by Hasim Rahman, Lewis’s fans lost hope in their favorite boxer. Seeing a fighter lose, especially via knockout, is hard for many fans to digest.

Making mistakes is only human, and many fighters throughout boxing history—including Lennox Lewis, who came back with an astonishing knockout of Rahman—come back even stronger.

The most important thing after such a defeat is damage control and an impressive following performance.

Team Khan is of course demanding a rematch with Danny Garcia at some point in November. The best way for redemption has always been a successful rematch, but what if Garcia decides to skip this option and aim at fighting someone else?

If that turns out to be the case, Amir might have another opponent in mind.

That is, countryman Ricky Hatton (via ESPN):

I don't think Ricky will want to fight us. I try to avoid the Ricky fight but you never know. It'd be a huge British fight and I don't think we've had a British fight like that. It would be bigger than the Dereck [Chisora] and David [Haye] fight but who knows?

Who knows?

I think if Hatton ever agrees to this fight, we all know it would be made in a heartbeat. It would be by far the safest fight for Khan, with a guaranteed huge payday for both teams.

The only problem is—aside from some British boxing fans—nobody would care to see this fight, let alone pay for it. Khan would then be further criticized for taking this fight instead of another, more competitive one.

However, that's not to say that it would not be properly marketed. Freddie Roach would instantly build Hatton up, and Khan would compliment Hatton on his previous achievements. HBO’s 247 would do the rest.

Soon after Amir Khan suffered his KO loss to Danny Garcia, rumors concerning the future of Freddie Roach coaching Khan had developed. In a various interviews Khan had mentioned Roach’s name and how he would like to change up with Freddie.

Many boxing fans took their thoughts to forums, and countless fans had interpreted that Amir was either pondering or had already decided to move on and separate from Freddie Roach.

In case you were one of those people worried about the future of the popular duo, don’t be concerned. According to a recent interview of Freddie Roach by RingTV.com, this is not the case at all.

When asked about this subject, Roach said the following:

“I spoke with Amir and his dad yesterday, and the idea of changing trainers never came up. I told them that if they think that I'm too busy, and 'if you need help getting somebody else, then I'll help you.' They said, 'no, no, everything's fine.' They said 'we just need to maybe get better sparring partners.' So I had a very nice breakfast with Shah Khan and Amir. So we had a nice meeting yesterday, and no one talked about getting fired."

I had my doubts when it came to the idea of Khan separating from Roach because it is Roach who polished Khan and was able to successfully prepare him for numerous tough opponents.

There are too many different opinions of Roach out there—some good and some not so good—but, all in all, Roach is a world-class trainer with a massive amount of knowledge and the ability to effectively transfer that wisdom to his students.

While sometimes changing trainers does lead to better results, those are very rare occasions, with most of those decisions leading to further debilitation of a fighter’s already learned skills. For Khan, who has been with Roach for a long time and has learned Freddie’s way of training, going a different direction would be a self-induced career suicide. 

"We talked about fighting again in December. So I was open to December because I have Chavez in September and Pacquiao in November. We figured that we could come back in December and that would work out fine. They want to fight in December so that there won't be any interference with anybody else," continued Roach.

Seems like team Kahn had talked to Roach about the fact that he no longer wishes to be number two during his training and wants to have all of Roach’s time and attention when preparing for a fight. In previous training camps, Roach would interlace Pacquiao’s and Khan’s preparation, flying Amir out to the Philippines for part of his training camp.

I think that as a young and obviously emotional fighter, Amir needs that full attention, as it would benefit his self-esteem as well as his state of mind.

Personally I am not a big fan of his, but Khan is still a world-class fighter with tremendous potential. If only he filtered some of the things that he sometimes says, he would limit the negative attention he receives.

When touching on the subject of his current loss and a possible rematch, Roach said:

"It's just a situation where Amir got caught. He made a mistake and he got caught by a left hook. He went out there a little too early and he got caught. We had planned to out-box this guy. But then Amir started to exchange with him. That's when he got caught pulling away. He had his hand down. That's something that we worked on during the fight, but it happens. This happens in boxing. If we get a rematch, we will out-box him. I would like the rematch right away. There's no sense even thinking about 147 until we show that we can beat this guy at 140.”

I agree and believe that in a rematch Khan would likely dominate the fight, although it would be much less exciting by all means. Amir is a pretty good fighter from the outside, and that is exactly what he needs to stick to, especially against a heavy puncher like Garcia.

With Peterson and now this, Khan needs to do some serious damage control, and he needs to do it fast and in an impressive fashion. By totally dominating Garcia in a rematch, Khan would redeem himself and could then talk about something bigger. Getting a rematch against Garcia should not be much of a problem, as it gives a chance for Garcia to solidify his win and earn a much larger paycheck.

Losing to Garcia again would send Amir to the abyss, and climbing back up would not be a quick or easy task. Thus, I am positive that Khan would take his time and be a lot more careful the second time around.

After his recent fourth-round TKO loss to Danny Garcia, Amir Khan has been on the very surface of most of the boxing forum discussions and articles. Despite the fact that Khan was able to climb the boxing rankings ladder, lately he has been descending as if it were an icy slide. With this recent loss, Khan’s stock has fallen, and the road back to the top might be a rough one.

Having said that, most boxing fans seem to be confident that Khan will not relent and will be back on top in no time.

As far as the loss to Garcia goes, Khan thinks that it could have partly been due to the fact that he had to travel more than usual in the weeks leading up to the fight. In an ESPN article, Khan was quoted as saying:

Sometimes a lot of traveling is not going to be good for you. I have traveled to the Philippines and back. Maybe what we did wrong was having two camps back to back as well. I was spending a lot of time away from home.

Truthfully, I can see how travel and time changes could throw an athlete off. Jet-lag is a very real physiological response to changes in a geographical environment, and as all of us know, traveling can really tire a person out. Most fighters tend to chose one training site and stick with it until the fight night, although some foreign fighters like to begin their training closer to home and the migrate to wherever the fight might take place.

For Khan’s training, he was nowhere near home during the entire camp. First, he was dragged to the Philippines to train alongside Manny Pacquiao with Freddie Roach and then ended up in L.A. to finish off his preparation. Maybe traveling all over the world is not a very solid reason for underperforming, but dismissing it is also unwarranted.

In an interview with the Daily Star, Khan also discussed his future with Freddie Roach and the fact that some things are going to have to change.

“It is hard when you are with Manny and have to be the No.2. Every fight is a big fight for me,” stated Khan.

No doubt Khan has had it with Pacquiao and Roach. Paying someone to help you win world titles should always make you the priority of whoever is taking charge of the preparation. In Khan’s case, that person is Freddie Roach. We all know that Freddie’s relationship with Manny is very close, and they treat each other better than family. That very fact may cause some unnoticed dismissals of his other fighters that Roach might be overlooking and unrecognizing.

“I’m at the stage where I can make no more mistakes. I need to do things that benefit me and stop thinking about others, which I’ve been doing my entire life. In the end, it’s me who gets in the ring. Now is the best time to sort these things out and my team will talk things over with Freddie. I’m sure he will understand because he’s been a fighter too,” continued Khan.

I am assuming that the "others" Amir is referring to is anyone who is present or is a part of camp Khan that doesn’t belong there during training, like Manny Pacquiao for example. And why should Khan give in and submit to whatever Roach desired him to do? In other words, Amir Khan is the boss when it comes to his preparation for a fight.

I always thought that it was peculiar that Roach flies Khan all the way to the Philippines to train with Pacquiao, even though most of that training involves road work and stamina improving exercises, all of which he could do wit his team back home.

One of the more interesting discussions happening now is whether a re-match between Garcia and Khan will actually happen, and if so, will it take place in 2012? I believe we will have an answer for this in the following couple of weeks.

First off, let me say that Danny Garcia has far exceeded my expectations. Before the fight I had Khan winning a late TKO or decision because he would just pop in and out with his flurries, and win like that. Garcia's strongest point was his countering, but I didn't think his timing would be good enough to catch Khan or effective enough to stop him.

Danny Garcia proved everybody wrong, though, last weekend by knocking out Amir Khan and ruining the British boxer's dream of fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr. later this year.

The fight started well enough for Khan, who seemed to be overwhelming Garcia with his flurry of punches. Although they didn't all land, he was pushing Garcia back and seemed to be dominating the fight.

The second round was more of the same, but Garcia was starting to land his counters better when Khan came in for his flurries. Although the HBO commentators didn't mention it, Garcia was timing Khan better and catching him almost every time he came in. 

At that point, it was fairly evident that if Khan didn't change his style up during the fight, he would risk getting hurt by a counter hook. Khan was open to a counter hook every single time he came in, and in the third round, Garcia capitalized on that and knocked him down with a devastating punch to Khan's neck.

From there, Khan couldn't recover from the knockdown. Even with a 19-second count from Kenny Bayless, Khan was still woozy, and it was evident in the next round. Garcia would go on to push the action, and Khan was unable to escape as Bayless stopped the fight near the end of the fourth.

The point of this article is: Khan was asking to get knocked out. He was getting tagged every time he came in and literally made no adjustments to this. He probably thought if he threw more punches faster, he could compensate for Garcia's timing.

Also, Khan was very unwise to act like a warrior in the fourth round. While it's good show value, Khan was very out of it and isn't the type of fighter who's able to go toe-to-toe while being hurt. 

In the end, Khan will now have to spend time rebuilding, as he is coming off a two-fight losing streak. Hopefully, Golden Boy will put a redemption match together and pit Amir Khan against Victor Ortiz. That would be an exciting fight that everybody would want to watch.

If the 24-0 record didn't have you convince that Danny "Swift" Garcia was the next great up-and-coming light welterweight boxer, his fourth-round TKO over the favored Amir Khan certainly did.

Khan had lost just two fights coming into Saturday's bout, one of which was a highly controversial split-decision loss to Lamont Peterson.

Before the fight, Garcia was a largely unknown but extremely talented boxer from Philadelphia. Now, at the very least, he has his foot in boxing's door, and is surely looking to bust the hinges off in the future.

Garcia made Khan look bad in the final two rounds at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas. Sure, Khan looked faster for most of the night, but that's his method of operation. "Swift" was far more tactical and precise than the man he floored multiple times.

The former champion wasn't at his best, but Garcia took advantage of his miscalculations. The undefeated champion had a better gameplan than the man he felled in Round 4.

He let Khan swing away on him in the first and second round, and swing away he did. Once Khan tired himself out and expended plenty of energy, Garcia began to attack the body frequently.. Khan began to get comfortable with the prospect of getting hit in the midsection as opposed to the face, which gave Garcia a golden opportunity to land a counter left hook to Khan's chin in the closing seconds of Round 3.

It's easy to say that a fighter is great when he steps into the ring and walks away with a convincing undisputed victory, but what truly makes a fighter one of the best in the world is when he walks out of his corner and gets tagged early and often.

That's exactly what Garcia did. Even when Khan was catching him, he kept his defense up and his head on straight. He picked his spots much better than Khan did, which is sometimes the deciding factor in boxing.

Garcia has added quality victories to his resume over the last 15 months, scoring a unanimous decision victory over Nate Campbell, a split decision over Kendall Holt to win the vacant NABO Light Welterweight belt, a unanimous decision over Erik Morales to win the WBC Light Welterweight title and now an impressive TKO win to take the WBA (Super) Light Welterweight belt from Amir Khan.

Now Garcia has the Ring Magazine, WBC and WBA (Super) Light Welterweight straps in his possession. It's going to take a great fighter to steal them from him, as he has now proven that he is here to stay.

Danny Garcia shocked the boxing world with his fourth-round defeat of Amir Khan Sunday in Las Vegas.

The loss triggered a response from Carl Froch, the International Boxing Federation (IBF) super-middleweight champion. He thinks Khan should retire, according to AFP.com. 

But Khan shouldn't retire from boxing. He'll bounce back, and here are three reasons why. 

He's only 25

Retire? At age 25? Are you kidding me?

Khan is in the peak of his career. You can blame his concentration and focus levels to why he lost to Garcia.

If anything, this will be the moment of his career where you can look back on and say "that's where his boxing career took off."

We are about to find out what type of character Khan holds. This is now the most important time of his boxing career.

He'll bounce back strong. 

Motivation

Life is going to bring ups and downs throughout a career. Not every person is created the same way, a way where things fall perfectly in place.

Many will battle, persevere and conquer whatever is in their path.

Khan is having one of the most difficult challenges of his life. Losing multiple fights, including one to Garcia, should wake him up. If it doesn't, something is wrong.

With the talent, high ceiling and motivation, Khan will be back.

Talent

There is a reason why Khan was the WBA (Super) and Light Welterweight champion—he's that good. He didn't get to where he is today by just getting lucky. He's a talented boxer who can go up against the best in the world.

Khan is going through a tough time in his career, but he'll return to top form sooner rather than later. This will be a lesson well worth it when it's all said and done.