By Ian S Palmer
Unbeaten WBO Welterweight Champion Terence Crawford of Omaha, Nebraska will be defending the title for the second time this Saturday, April 20th when he takes on former welterweight champ Amir Khan of England at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The 12-round bout can be seen live in North America on pay per view and in the UK on BT pay per view. Crawford last fought in October when he stopped Jose Benavidez in the 12th round. Khan’s last outing was in August when he beat Samuel Vargas by a 12-round unanimous decision. Crawford enters the fight as a three-division world champ.
The 31-year-old former lightweight and super lightweight champion Crawford enters the ring with a perfect record of 34-0 with 25 Kos. He possesses excellent foot and hand speed and better-than-average power. He’s an accurate puncher who often changes to the southpaw stance and owns a solid chin, but sometimes gets off to a slow start. Basically, Crawford is the total package and is considered as one boxing brightest stars. He’s 5-feet-8-inches tall with a 70-inch reach. Crawford had an excellent amateur career and has boxed 189 rounds since turning pro in 2008.
He owns wins over the likes of Benavidez, Jeff Horn, Thomas Dulorme, Raymundo Beltran, Dierry Jean, Hank Lundy, Breidis Prescott, Ricky Burns, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Viktor Postol, John Molina Jr., Felix Diaz and Julius Indongo. He’s also got power to go along with his skills with a current knockout ratio of 74 per cent. He beat Burns by unanimous decision in 2014 for the WBO Lightweight title and defended it twice. He beat Dulorme by sixth-round stoppage for the vacant WBO Jr. Welterweight title in April, 2015 and defended it five times.
He also defended the WBC Jr. Welterweight crown three times after winning it from Postol by unanimous decision in July, 2016. He then became the undisputed champion of the division with 2017’s third-round knockout over Indongo as he added the WBA and IBF belts to his collection. As mentioned, Crawford’s sometimes a slow starter, but improves as the fight goes on and he’s comfortable in both a boxing match and a slugfest. He’s regarded by most fans and experts as one of the world’s top pound-for-pound boxers for good reason.
This will be Khan’s third bout after a two year layoff. He stopped Phil Lo Greco after just 39 seconds in his first comeback fight last April before meeting Vargas. The 31-year-old Khan of Bolton is a former World Junior Welterweight and British Commonwealth Lightweight Champion who enters the contest at 33-4 with 20 Kos. His sixth-round stoppage loss to Canelo Alvarez in a shot at the WBC Middleweight Title in May, 2016 snapped a five-fight winning streak with victories over Chris Algieri, Devon Alexander, Luiz Collazo, Julio Diaz and Carlos Molina.
Khan has lost four fights during his career with three of them coming by stoppage and it’s well known his chin is often questionable even though he has stood up to some solid punchers. His first loss was a first-round stoppage to Breidis Prescott in 2008 and he then dropped highly-controversial split decision to Lamont Peterson in December of 2011. He was stopped by former WBC Champion Danny Garcia in the fourth round in his very next fight in July of 2012 and was also KO’d by Alvarez.
However, he’s also faced and beaten some of the best boxers of his weight divisions over the years such as Marco Antonio Barrera, Zab Judah, Andriy Kotelnik, Paulie Malignaggi and Marcos Maidana as well as those mentioned above on his five-bout winning streak. In fact, Khan’s gone 10-3 with 2 Kos against former and current world champions. He enjoyed a fine amateur career and capped it off with a silver medal in the lightweight division at the 2004 Olympics as a 17-year-old.
Khan turned pro in 2005 and now has 222 rounds under his belt since then with a decent knockout ratio of 54 per cent. He stands just over 5-feet-8-inches tall with a reach of 71 inches so is more or less the same size as Crawford. He also possesses fine boxing skills, speed and movement in the ring. He’s not known as a power puncher, but managed to stop Judah and deck Maidana and Collazo.
Prediction…
Khan simply needs to use his speed, jab, footwork and other boxing skills against Crawford as well as his underrated power. The Englishman has excellent boxing skills and perhaps greater hand speed than the champion, but as always, the outcome of this fight is going to depend on his chin. Crawford can be hit, but he’s shown a solid chin so far, so a Khan stoppage isn’t likely. If this bout goes the distance then any outcome shouldn’t be a surprise. It could go either way or a draw, but I think Crawford will eventually stun Khan along the way and then stop him.
