Amir Khan, Britain’s one time golden boy has flown the nest this week, defecting from career long promoter Frank Warren and signing instead a reported three fight deal with Golden Boy Promotions. The move has ramifications for many and has caused much conjecture, enough to make me want to tap keys and respond.
There are a couple of articles doing the rounds which suggest that Khan decided on a U.S. relocation due to having experienced racial bigotry in his homeland. Kevin Mitchell from ‘The Guardian’ alludes to as much in a piece entitled:
‘Amir Khan’s love of America is fuelled by the hate of British bigots: The racists have finally driven Amir Khan to leave Frank Warren and join Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions’
Mitchell is aggrieved at the move and lays the blame for it squarely at the door of Britain’s ‘boo boys’ as he calls them, ‘a small crew of racial bigots’. Read it here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/jan/18/amir-khan-america-bigots-hate
Before I address this, there’s another, far less eloquent article currently posted on eastsideboxing.com (the lack of quality control on that site is scary and one of the reasons I ceased contributing recently), which cites anti-Muslim racism in the UK as being culpable. This tripe has an obvious agenda and doesn’t care to hide it and whilst I’d ignore such a piece usually, it will find quite an audience and therefore encourages comment. This effort can be found here: http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news.php?p=22523&more=1
I’m genuinely astonished at some of Mitchell’s remarks, suggesting that Khan’s primary motive for jumping ship is due to racism he has experienced. Of course I can’t presume to know the level of prejudice Amir has encountered in his personal life, although there were recent reports detailing putrid anti-Khan hate groups on social networking site ‘Facebook’. Khan himself was quoted also as saying, “It’s probably jealousy and sometimes skin colour does make a difference. I would be a superstar in Britain. I never get racial remarks [said to my face], but it’s always out there, which you can’t stop. You just live and learn about what people are like. I just choose to ignore them.”
As with any multi-cultural society there will be a bigoted minority, who are to be pitied. Personally, I view Britain as a tolerant nation however the level of racism here is open for debate. It wasn’t too many moons ago that the BBC commissioned a poll which threw up a 51% majority who did not agree with me. Whatever your viewpoint, I strongly disagree that this is the main reason for the negativity surrounding young Amir.
When Khan burst into the nation’s consciousness at the 2004 Athens Olympics, he was quite rightly heralded as a national treasure and a perfect symbol of multicultural Britain. He was an overnight sensation, a gutsy 17 year old kid with a swashbuckling style and nerves of steel which almost allowed him to pull off a tremendous shock in the gold medal match against the majestic Cuban, Mario Kindelan.
From then on, it was Khan fever.
I myself was one of his biggest fans when he switched to the paid code and he began working his way through the lightweight ranks on network television, whilst friends of mine who normally don’t follow the sport were along for the ride, cheering the ‘Bolton Flash’ vehemently. It wasn’t just us either. Khan was pulling in a reported 6.3 million viewers to watch him fight a rematch with Kindelan in Bolton and 5.7 million stayed up to see him face Michael Gomez.
Then something changed.
Khan’s perceived ego started to rile some, whereas his level of competition agitated others. There are only so many easy nights fans will stomach, especially after the Audley Harrison debacle.
If British sports fans hate one particular personality above all others, it’s that of the braggart. Chris Eubank built a career out of playing the boastful heel fans loved to hate. Lennox Lewis was detested early on due to his self promotion and James DeGale is routinely barracked thanks to his cocky and arrogant demeanour. Some fans took Khan’s confidence for arrogance, which they don’t care for much at all here in a land still famed for manners and etiquette.
This again was only part of the story. The primary reason fans began to turn against Khan owed everything to the opposition he was being matched with, which was overwhelmingly made up of light punching, smaller men. Khan himself is big, even for a light welterweight and towers above men like compatriot Ricky Hatton and sparmate Manny Pacquiao. It was grating then to see him pound on former super featherweights like Michael Gomez and Mohammed Medjadji. A guaranteed way to rile fans is by treating them like mugs, which Amir’s promoter Frank Warren managed to do by featuring young Amir as a headline act on national television against a succession of overmatched opposition.
Then came the reason I myself fell out of love with Amir, the night he was flattened by feather fisted Willie Limond in London. When you begin following a prospect, you invest a degree of faith in them and it’s hard not to feel let down, when you tumble to the fact that you’ve probably gotten things wrong and they aren’t in fact, going to lead you to the Promised Land.When Limond landed that flurry of punches which turned Khan’s knees to jelly, I realised that all of the hope I’d had for him, all of the imaginings his talent had promised meant little because he couldn’t hold a punch. The wishful thinking that Blighty had finally found its very own Roy or Oscar evaporated in an eye blink.
Fair-weather fan then? Perhaps that’s an apt description yet unlike team sports where one picks a team and sticks with them through thick and thin; in boxing it’s quite different. I used to love Antonio Margarito until he cheated. I used to think Steve Collins was a good guy until he beat up the remnants of Nigel Benn. I thought Audley Harrison had a shot at being a champ until his chin let me down also.
When a prospect lets you down it’s even worse than when someone like Margarito reveals his true character. It’s a bit like investing fresh hope in a potential partner only to have it roundly dashed when it becomes evident you’ve actually met a complete jerk and you’ve been wasting your time all along.
To make matters worse, Frank Warren then signed a contract which made Khan a PPV attraction………before he’d even fought anyone. Not only were fans annoyed at Khan’s flights of fancy and lack of real opposition, they were now being charged premium prices to even see him fight. He was being sold as an attraction before he’d even proved he was a world class fighter. Why wouldn’t he face legitimate opponents like John Murray, Jon Thaxton or Yuri Romanov the fans cried?
Then it all came tumbling down. Jorge Rubio. Breidis Prescott. 54 seconds.
Naysayers were proven right; Khan was exposed as a protected fighter, but just how protected? I’ve checked the records of a few Khan-esque starlets to see how their opposition to date measures up to Amir’s.
Firstly Victor Ortiz, a guy who forged his career in the States and was one of Khan’s former amateur peers. Ortiz has tallied 28 opponents to date, who prior to meeting Victor, had racked up a 64.4% win record and a 67.4% knockout ratio. Juanma Lopez, the Puerto Rican phenom who fights Steve Luevano this weekend has notched 27 fights, with his opposition holding a 79.4% win ratio and a 61.9% kayo ratio. Another rising contender, the Cuban Yuriorkis Gamboa, has faced tougher opposition still, boasting an 83.5% win ratio. On top of that, the men Gamboa has bested had an impressive knockout ratio of 64.9%.
Khan meanwhile has encountered 23 opponents and whilst their win percentage is good, 75.7% in fact, which is behind that of Lopez and Gamboa, yet above Ortiz, their kayo ratio is a rather damning 44.2%.
Further reasons to dislike Khan then followed. His return against the lowly Oisin Fagan again featured on PPV, whilst Breidis Prescott, Khan’s destroyer was ignored. Then came the fight with the shot, ancient and tiny legend Marco Antonio Barrera, a fight I myself attended. I cheered for both men yet was there to support Barrera, a legendary fighter brought across for Khan to scalp, a move which although shrewd by Warren, was never going to win Amir new found popularity.
I can attest to witnessing a minority of racist fans that night, the majority of which were in attendance purely to drink themselves stupid. One such fellow almost took a dive down the steep MEN Arena steps on two separate occasions, once when he was unable to find his seat due to his inebriated state and he elected to stand in front of my seat. The second occasion was when, banished to the aisle, he began racially taunting a group of Asian lads and Amir himself. It happens and it’s ugly yet I’d argue it’s by a minority of morons who are more often than not are castigated by those around them.
Khan appeared to have redeemed himself recently and in his last fight against Dmitriy Salita, the sell out Newcastle crowd afforded him a tremendous reception, the boo boys it seems were no more.
Khan’s move appears to be wholly career orientated, with Golden Boy promising him the fights in the U.S he hopes can make him a global star. Freddie Roach was quoted thus, “I know Amir was not happy with the offer to fight Maidana and wanted to see if there was a better deal out there.”
The move is a blow for the industry in Britain and for the main man on the promotional front, Frank Warren. Warren’s matchmaking post Prescott was skilful in the extreme and it’s hard not to feel it for the man after seeing him once again lose his prize asset.
Khan’s next opponent is still a mystery. If he elects to avoid a legitimate puncher in Marcos Maidana, his unpopularity will increase and it will have nothing at all to do with race or religion.
