Has Amir Khan blown his chance to be great already????

Don Curry - "Unbeaten"Wba welterweight champion 1983-86
- "Unbeaten" Undisputed Welterweight Champion 84-86....
- WBC Jr midd champ 88-89

Best wins - Marlon Starling twice, Milton Mcrory, Colin Jones, Carlos Santos, Gianfranco Rosi..........No 1 p4per 85-86.......

NOT GREAT.........

Amir Khan basically a paper champion (maybe an injustice) who's best wins so far have been Malignaggi, (past it) Judah and Maidana who are not anywhere near the class of Curry's four best wins......he's also been beaten twice by ordinary guys......

I don't know will five years at the top beating average fighters be enough??? At least Calazghe beat Hoppo, Jones, Reid and Brewer when he ruled!!

I'm not sure this guy can be great now If Curry's the nonn-great standard!!!!

..... although I'm sure in his own head he is!!

i dont think anyone was considering him as being a modern great were they?

if he beats the likes of peterson, ortiz, brook and berto he'll be one of the best champions britain has had for a very long time and have better names on his resume than hatton.

Too early to tell. I suspect that beating Peterson would be seen as a big feather in his cap; look at the adulation Lewis gets for blowing away Rahman second time out, or Jones for blitzing Griffin at the second time of asking, or Pep for pulling out a win in the second bout against Saddler, even if he did lose the following two.

It seems that he's going to have to step up to Welterweight for those so-called 'defining fights', as with Bradley now gone there aren't all that many great names left at 140 lb. If he can, at some stage, establish himself as the best Welterweight in the world for a decent period, then we can start talking of greatness. Right now, he's on a bit of a tightrope.

Errrrrr didnt Pacquiao get knocked out not once but TWICE early on in his career? Lets not forget Khan is still young and learning. He is clearly not a great, but has the potential to be in years to come without a doubt,

Its whether he does what Pacquiao did, and fulfills it.

Depends when he retires really as he's previously said he'll retire at about 27 i believe which if true leaves him little time to become great.

Trouble with Curry is I think he did himself no favours with out of the ring activitieis if memory serves......

Curry is a bonafida hall of famer on his accomplishments, despite whatever it is he's done that people are cheesed off about.

Why is Curry not liked? I would look on Wiki but I can't be bothered.

To answer the question, no. But the path to greatness is definitely a lot steeper for him now

He wsn't green when he lost to Petersen was he????

When did Manny have a bonafide loss last??? That wasn't from a great!!

Fact is Curry isn't great and he has longevity and better fighters on his record as well as being a p4p no 1..

Apart from Mayweather who can he beat to further his case?????

Bradley??...........Not in Starling's league for me..

Is longevity enough???

Khan is simply not good enough to be considered a modern great. One problem with him is that his opponents enter their fights believing that they can KO him if they land and as such will try harder to land. The feeling is that Khan is chinny and seeing him rocked in many fights adds to their confidence.

Plus he doesn't have the arsenal to keep people away. Everyone knew Hearns was chinny. But all were fearful of his power. Khan doesn't instill fear in his opponents. All enter believing they have a chance.

No comparison between him and Curry. Anyone trying to make such a comparison never saw The Don in his prime. His destruction of Milt and Jones was poetry in motion. For 3 years Curry was the best there was. There was even serious talk of him beating SRL.....thats how highly he was rated. Until Honey that is.

Not all alltime greats have been hugely gifted though have they Az.....

Joe Calzaghe, Ricky Hatton, Eusebio Pedroza..............

Khan is around in a time that's relatively talent-free....

Will longevity be enough though (at least Calzaghe was undefeated)...........to counter the Prescott...peterson defeats...

Or maybe he should just avoid anybody with a surname that begins with P..

Not going to disagree. But many believe that they can beat Khan for reasons I gave. Many boxers always claim they will beat x y and z whilst in reality they're going for the payday. Not with Khan. That includes the talent free bunch.

It's a fair point.....

Prefer eating it....................

With nice cobra lager to wash it down..

You might want to be careful drinking that stuff truss - its not always clean

88Chris05 wrote:Too early to tell. I suspect that beating Peterson would be seen as a big feather in his cap; look at the adulation Lewis gets for blowing away Rahman second time out, or Jones for blitzing Griffin at the second time of asking..

The Rahman fight is a very good example as I feel Lewis, rightfully is lauded for this win. You can always be spooked by a fighter who's got one up on you, even if they are inferior but Lewis took the rematch much more seriously and spectacularly took out the trash!

Considering the above I think Khan really missed a trick by not remacthing Prescott. It's all very well saying he's moved on but to put the record straight does wonders for a fighter's legacy as Chris has pointed out with Lewis/Rahman and Jones Jnr/Griffin. It would have done wonders for Khan considering how spectacularly he lost to Prescott. However, to achieve greatness Khan I feel could do without losing again, beat Petersen comfortably, dominate at Light Welter then Welter and beat one of two p4p in the process. At the moment all of this doesn't look likely.

Without the two point deductions (let alone adding the missed KD by the ref), Khan would have won a split decison anyway. People seem to think he was widely outpointed by Petersen when the fact is that had he not had the rush of blood to the head and needlessly shoved his man, Khan would still be champion. He allowed Petersen back into the fight and failed to capitalise on a couple of occsaions when Petersen was there for the taking and was outworked at times but the scorecards show that the points deductions did for Khan and not Petersen doing anything particularly special.

Petersen says Khan can only fight one way (not strictly true, his movement against Judah was excellent at times) but even if Khan fights the same way in May, barring points deductions, he should win the fight with some ease.

As for Khan being a great, I think there's still time...so long as there's a drastic redefinition of the word "great"

No one is saying he was widely outpointed........(Where are your sources???)

What's being said is he lost....however contentiously!!

Leonard gets marked down for Duran 1 and many including me scored the fight for him...

A loss is a loss is a loss......

Yeah but Leonard also gets marked up for beating Duran in the second stanza.

I don't think Khan has blown his chance at greatness just yet but by golly he now has a lot do to become great. To reverse the result against Petersen will do a lot of good but like I said the Prescott loss will always hurt and there were chances for him to bury that piece of bad news once and for all but he chose not to do so.

Folk on here have been banging on about the fight as if Khan was beaten from pillar to post.

As for Leonard, he has enough on his resume to make the loss to Duran (who was no slouch himself - drunk rolling aside) not so important in the great scheme of things.

Khan doesn't have a Benitez, Hearns, Duran or Hagler on his resume and, given the state of boxing and promotion these days) probably never will so his chances of reaching that level are less than promising.

Unless he jumps up to WW and then LM and wins some major fights, he's destined to some way from "all-time great"

"Folk on here"..Isn't a source!!!!!!!!!!!

As for Leonard being bigged up for Duran 2...that's irrelevant..

You want me to trawl through the hundreds of posts on the dozens of threads about it to provide a source? Neither the time nor the inclination to do so but surely you will have noticed the number of people who believe Khan was well beaten when it was actually a close fight.

Yes, Khan needs to redeem himself but it's not as if he needs to reinvent the wheel to get the job done.

Khan is a good fighter,I don't think he is good enough to be a great,yes it was a close fight against Peterson,but if Khan had been that good the points deduction should have been irrelevant.

The Maidana fight he was in big bother,Khan's fast he can box,throws hurtful punches rather than concussive, but his defence leaves a lot to be desired,we still have to see whether he can take a shot from a full welter yet.

Personally too many chinks in the armour for me for Khan to be a great.

You probably have trawled and seeing as I can't recall anybody being dumb enough to suggest petersen beat Khan easily ...you've given up....

Hence the folk stuff...................Appreciate your contribution though..

as always..

Nico I'll reiterate and say that a lot of greats have chinks in the armor although I agree he won't be great..

Define great?
Great for a British fighter
Great talent
Great resume
Multiweight champion
Best of his era
Top 50 p4p of all time

It's matter of opinion if someone is great or not. There obvious fighters like Robinson, Leonard, Greb, Armstrong etc but it's so hard to be like them.

Is Barrera a great because the lost to Jones? Is cotto a great for beating Mosley, judah but beaten by margarito, manny an struggling to beat clottley. Is Calzaghe a great for beig unbeaten but never really having a career defining fight (jones, Hopkins pas their primes)

Can khan be great, maybe but writing him off now is ridiculous. No wonder fighters try so hard to remain with an unbeaten record when you can be judged so early. What if he goes up to welterweight, knocks out brook Ortiz etc and has a long reign at the top

The thing is Truss watching boxers over the years you see something special in a fighter that makes them stand out from the rest I don't see it in Khan.

I know been a big Don Curry fan yourself you seen something special in him,when he took Colin Jones apart with unbelievable speed and accuracy I sat and watched it live and thought this is frightening,Jones was as tough as they come and Curry made him look like a street fighter.

That's what special fighters do.