By Ian S Palmer
Former junior welterweight world champion and current WBC Silver Welterweight titleholder Amir Khan of England will be taking on Chris Algieri of America in a 12-round welterweight tilt at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York on Friday, May 29. The fight is a part of the Premier Boxing Champions Series and will be broadcast live in North America by Spike TV. British fans can catch all of the action on BoxNation. Khan needs to look impressive in this outing as he hopes to land a shot against the undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. before the American finally hangs up his gloves for good.
The 28-year-old Khan, who’s also a former British Commonwealth Champion, will enter the contest with a solid record of 30-3 with 19 Kos while the 31-year-old Algieri is 20-1 and has just 8 Kos to his name. Khan is on a four-fight winning streak after taking care of American Devon Alexander by unanimous decision in his last outing in December. Khan had his way with the former world champion in one of his most impressive performances to date. The native of Bolton, England has lost three fights during his career as he was stopped by Breidis Prescott in the first round in 2008, then lost a highly controversial split decision to Lamont Peterson in December of 2011 and was stopped by current WBC Champion Danny Garcia in the fourth round in his very next fight in July of 2012.
Khan’s chin has been questioned, but he’s been in against some of the best boxers of his weight divisions such as Marco Antonio Barrera, Zab Judah, Andriy Kotelnik, Paulie Malignaggi, Carlos Molina, Luis Collazo, Julio Diaz, Marcos Maidana, and of course Alexander, Peterson and Garcia. Khan enjoyed a fine amateur career and capped it off with a silver medal in the lightweight division at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece. He turned pro in 2005 and has 191 rounds under his belt since then with a knockout ratio of 57.6 per cent. Khan is just over 5-feeet-8-inches tall with a reach of 71 inches.
Algieri of Huntingdon, New York made a name for himself in the boxing world back in June of last year when he beat hard-hitting Ruslan Provodnikov of Russia by split decision in a 12-round firefight. He then took on Manny Pacquiao five months later in his last outing and dropped a wide unanimous decision. He also found himself on the canvas half a dozen times in that fight as well. Algieri turned pro in 2008 and has fought 131 rounds with a low knockout ratio of 38.1 per cent. Other than beating Provodnikov, Algieri’s biggest wins have been against Curtis Smith, Mike Arnaoutis and Emmanuel Taylor. Algieri has the height advantage over Khan as he’s 5-foot-10 and also has an inch reach advantage at 72 inches.
Algieri is a former kickboxer who has pretty good boxing skills. However, his chin is somewhat on the questionable side and so is his power. However, he has tremendous heart and determination and always bounces to his feet from a knockdown. His power is minimal, but Khan has also been down a few times in his career and needs to make sure he doesn’t walk into one against Algieri. Overall though, these are two guys who would rather box than slug it out, but they’ve both proven they can go toe-to-toe when they need to. Khan has a pair of the fastest hands in the game and is hard to stop once he gets on a roll as the punches just keep on coming.
Prediction
Khan and Algieri are two skilled boxers, but Khan is the better of the two in just about every department. In addition, his power may be somewhat underrated. Look for this to be an entertaining fight with Khan taking it by a decision or possibly a late stoppage.
