Amir Khan Beats Maidana

Amir Khan Beats Maidana

Amir Khan remains the WBA Champion with a points win over Marcos Maidana. The fight was great, it was mostly all action. Amir Khan caught Maidana with two excellent body punches very early in the fight, putting Maidana on the canvas. Maidana's face said it all, the punches were perfectly placed. However, Maidana is a true warrior, he was able to get up and finish the round.

It was very clear that Khan was too fast for Maidana, specially in the first half of the fight. Maidana was made to miss a lot, and Khan was landing some good combinations, making Maidana frustrated. When Maidana tried to throw back Khan was out of range.

After the first half of the fight Khan started to slow down and Maidana was able to catch Khan several times with huge punches. Credit to Khan he did take the punches thanks to him having his hands constantly cupped around his face. On quite a few exchanges Khan looked dazed, and slightly amateurish, as if he didn't know what to do. Through some of the later rounds he was in serious trouble, being totally nackered and taking punishment, he was holding on for dear life, and also running around the ring, desperate not to let Maidana into range.

Maidana was also deducted one point for trying to use his elbow when the referee told the fighters to break, which did him no favors on the scorecards.

Credit to Amir Khan, he got the win and took some big punches in doing so. So he did answer some questions there. But it has to be said, he did look very amateurish at some points in this fight. Khan caught Maidana with some flush punches but they did not seem to bother him that much. If I were Freddy Roach I would not be happy with Amir Khan's performance.

This was his  Las Vegas debut fight, and Khan did not make this an easy fight like him and Freddy said it was going to be. It was actually the toughest fight of Khan's boxing career so far. I thought the fight was going to be stopped at one point in favor of Maidana as Khan was in serious trouble, throwing almost nothing back for very long periods, just running or holding, and his legs were gone. I think Joe Cortez gave him a bit of a gift in letting the fight continue. At one point I did hear Joe Cortez in the Khan corner telling him, "I'm here to protect you", concerned with how Khan was looking in the later rounds.