Non Pool
Topic: Marco Antonio Barrera v Amir Khan

5 years ago this would have been a mismatch, still think barrera will knock him out.
barrera awesome price.
views?

i genuinely think khan will get taught a severe lesson. to me khan has been babied far too much. his promoter (frank warren i think) has made sure to pick fights that wouldn't give him too much bother, even the fight when he was sent packing in the first round was meant to be a walkover.

i would like for khan to be a star in the boxing game as there aren't exactly british boxers bursting into the world limelight left, right and centre, but i just think, while he does need big fights to advance, barrera is too much too soon.

i hope to be proved wrong, and can't wait to watch the fight...

LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE.....

I dont agree.

Considering what happened to Khan recently I was very surprised they took this fight. But, there is a reason for it. And that is because Barrera is way past his best.

I dont think this is a foregone conclusion for Barrera and I think there might be some value getting on Khan to stop him.

To be fair I think it's a piss take that Khan is £14.95 on Sky box office one fight after getting ko'd in under a minute.

what are the prices?

Barrera has only had 7 rounds in 2 years since losing to pacman.

khan going down in this fight

Lamb to the slaughter.

Barrera could come into this fight in the worst condition of his life and Khan still wouldn't be able to hold a candle next to him

I'll be having something on Khan. I hope the odds reflect your thoughts.

I think it's a tough one to call.

Barrera won't have lost his smarts, or his ring-craft, or his experience, etc, but he is years past his best.

If Khan can't win this fight hi career is going nowhere fast, and I just can't believe Frank Warren would have chucked him in with barrera if he weren't supremely confident his man would win.

agreed.

depends who hits who first this fight.

Khan's speed might catch MAB early, if he doesnt, then MAB wins the fight.

its been a while since I watched MAB but I seem to remember he had a really good chin so that could make a difference if khan cant put him down

5/6 the pair with billy hills

Last I looked, Barrera was 2.2 on Betfair.

sometime during the first 3 rounds barrera will catch him..khan will go down..end of

i think Barrera wont give him any room. hes gonna chase him round the ring and beat him like a dog for 4 or 5 rounds. Hope i'm wrong.

Barrera past his best, but can still bang, and still has a good chin.

Khan will have improved, is stronger and is not the underdog some people make him out to be.

Barrera is way past his best and very inactive. De La Hoya was the same and I said Pacman would beat him, and he did.

Perhaps the big question in this fight is with Khans ability to go the distance if he cannot knock him out.

simple facts khan..CANNOT take a punch...

You have seen him get banged by how many real good punches??? A couple, and the one from Bredis(sp?) would've knocked many more than khan out.

It was the best thing that could've happened to him, he was slipping towards Naseem Hamed teritory but now he has a coach who doesn't suffer fools and will also be far more wary of what is going on than he would've done keep beating up bums.

There are a lot of people that know a damn sight more than a few pool players on here and thats good enough for me.

Khan to win on points.

On 2009-03-11 12:38 , Spunky69 Wrote:
Agreed.

There were people on here before the Pacman fight with De La hoya spouting utter crap. Conveniently ignoring that De la Hoya was past his best and near inactive for many years.

Barrera was a great fighter. He's done nothing of note for a couple of years.

He's moving up weight as well. That last cabbage he beat had about 45 fights and lost nearly half of them.

I think Khan will win. He's pretty strong at the weight and i've a feeling he'll be looking to go in and bang him out. Might have a few quid on an early knockout.

Jase, you give it the large one about people spouting crap, and then show your own ignorance by saying Khan will go in there to bang him out?

Freddie Roach has publicly said on a few occasions Khan will attempt to out-box Barrera, and is coaching him against the idea of going to war with him.

Also, both Warren and Roach have said that it will only take a momentary lapse in concentration for Barrera to finish the fight.

Warren, amongst many others, has castigated Khan's intentions in the Prescott fight, calling him naive and impetuous. He said Khan made a massive mistake in attempting to out-punch someone early, and if anything Khan will avoid like the plague any temptation to get in a war with a fighter with the smarts and chin of Marco Antonio Barrera.

I personally hope Barrera wins, if only to end all the hype about Amir. I bet at 9/1 on Prescott beating him, and was hoping that the way in which Khan crumbled under a Prescott JAB would have had at least some impact on the amount of tabloid inspired crap that people spouted about this offensively aesthetically pleasing yet fundamentally flawed fighter.

Barrera wasn't just a good fighter, he is an absolute certainty for the Hall of Fame, and has been in with, and beaten, some of the best fighters of the modern era. Khan has been in with a bunch of mechanics and plumbers, and been KTFO by an admittedly tough but unproven and distinguishably ungainly fighter in Breidis Prescott.

While Barrera was fighting Paquiao and Marquez as recently as two years ago, and going the distance with both, Khan was getting dumped on the seat of his pants by the likes of Michael Gomez (another bumped-up super-feather-weight) and the technically sound but unbelievably light-fisted Willie Limond.

Barrera has also been in constant training for about 18 weeks now, due to having a fight cancelled and then fighting the idiot that headbutted him in his last fight. I'm fairly sure that he won't be a shot old fighter, as some people like to insinuate, although there is almost no doubt that Khan will be faster on fight night.

There are still massive question marks over Khan's chin, and the ineffective lump that was Oisin Fagan did nothing to dispel any of those doubts for me. I agree that the big shot that did for Khan in the Prescott fight would have done for many fighters, but that is assuming that another fighter would have allowed it to land as cleanly as Khan did (Barrera wouldn't, for example...), and I also feel it a good idea to say that I have never criticized Khan's chin on the basis of that punch.

What convinced me totally that he has one of the worst chins I have seen was the fact that he wobbled a ridiculous amount when clipped with Prescott's jab. What followed is almost irrelevant in my reasoning, the jab did for Khan, and there has never been a 'proper' world champion in any division who would have had their legs go all Zab Judah on them when caught with that jab.

Amir Khan vs Breidis Prescott

At about 10 seconds, Prescott lands an innocuous jab on Khan, and his legs wobble, he is forced to bounce a bit to get his balance back.

On 20 seconds,Prescott clips him with a left hand. It doesn't connect cleanly, as can be seen from the total lack of deceleration on Prescott's glove. That shot would never have worried Barrera, or any of miliad other fighters I can name. Khan's legs completely went on him, in the same way Judah's legs did when he was smashed by Kostya Tszyu.

The difference?

Tszyu really hit Judah, the shot was clean, hard and right on the button. Khan was clipped by the swinging left hand, and completely lost his legs.

Kostya Tszyu vs Zab Judah

Khan is a fantastic offensive fighter. He is good to watch when in full flow, and the obvious influence of his reverance of Naseem Hamed is there for all to see. However, unlike his idol, who had a very under-rated chin, Khan does not have the ability to take a shot, and I am certain that unless Barrera is a hell of a lot more shot than I think he will be, he will catch Khan. Roach, as good a trainer as he is, cannot magically give Khan the ability to take shots well. He can teach him to avoid them, certainly, but it wasn't a great shot from Prescott that took Khan off balance, so it would be presumptuous in the extreme to suggest that Roach can teach him well enough to avoid all shots of equivalent power as that jab.

I think Khan will win a couple of rounds due to his superior speed, and will get tagged at some point in the third or fourth, with the result that he reacts the way he did when caught by Prescott. Then Barrera will do what he has done for 20 years, and finish him. Whatever doubts people may have about Barrera, he has always had a frightening ability to smell blood and finish opponents ruthlessly.

Barrera- KO-3 or 4.

Good post AF.

zab's legs

We'll see.

I heard the same pipe about De La Hoya, who he'd been against, and how he'd be too big and strong for Pacman. Who absolutely murdered the bloke.

I'm not a Khan fan, so I'm not championing him because I like him.

I'm on the fence over him long term, BUT, he's not as bad as people make out. He does hit people pretty hard and whilst I'm sure he'll have an element of caution, there is nothing to say he cannot look to knock Barrera out early if he gets the chance.

He's a very strong lad, and it'll be interesting to see how Barrera handles it. You know about as much about his gameplan as I do. And if you think Roach is going to come out and give everyone his fight plan before the fight you are a mug.

All i'm saying is that it is not the foregone conclusion plenty of people on here will think it is.

Oh, and I'm aware of Barrera's record. De La Hoya had a similar one, as have a few others, but if you are past your best (which he is) then those records mean nothing. As De la Hoya found out.

"Barrera's best was at 122lb (super-bantamweight) and 126lb (featherweight)," said Roach. "Amir is a big 135-pounder. It's 22-year-old kid against 35-year-old veteran. We're going to knock Barrera out."

Sounds like Roach is implying that Kahn will be trying to knock him out.

1. His chin is just as bad as people make out. He has never been caught with a significant shot and not been worried by it, in any of the fights I have seen (I think I have watched them all, with the possible exception of either Drilzane or Komjathi).

2. He has no 'strength' advantage over Paquiao, or Marquez, or Morales, or Hamed, if by 'strength' you actually mean 'power'. 'Strength' as personified by the fighting style of Hatton, or Skelton, will be next to irrelevant in this fight, as Khan will attempt to stay at range, and Barrera will be looking to attack the chin, not hold. If you are indeed implying that Khan can do anything that Barrera has not seen a hundred times or more in his career, power'wise, then you are either deluded or the Daily Star that you have drawn your opinions from hasn't actually reported how bloody hard all the above fighters actually punch, or at least not to a level that you would comprehend.

3. I quite obviously know more about Khan's gameplan than you do, as you seem to be labouring under the ridiculous notion that Khan will go to war with Barrera, or, as you so eloquently put it;


This despite any boxing fan who knows anything being sure that since Khan's main advantages will be speed and reach, he will almost certainly look to win the fight that way, rather than playing into Barrera's hands and have a brawl. I didn't even need to work that out for myself, as much as I would have been able, as Freddie Roach has said it several times. And if you are under the impression that a coach as good as Roach would attempt to wrong-foot a fighter like Barrera by stating that it would be stupid to get into a war, and then sending a weak-chinned fighter like Khan into a brawl with Barrera, then I propose that it is you who are the mug.

4. It is no foregone conclusion, on that you are right, but what you actually said in your prior post was that Khan would be going to war, and that you fancied the early knock-out, insinuating that you do feel it is a foregone conclusion, but the other way. I sense a climb-down.

5. De La Hoya's record is not comparable to Barrera's. De La Hoya was favourite over Manny due to the obvious weight discrepancies, not his record. There was never any doubt that Manny owuld be quicker, both in hand and foot. Oscar lost because Oscar could not turn the fight to his own advantage, ie- negate Pac-man's speed and use what should have been superior strength to slow him down and wear him out.

Oscar lost every major fight he ever had. He lost to Hopkins, Mosley (twice), Mayweather, Manny, and there is serious thought about his fight with Sturm, ie- the majority of people I have spoken with about the Felix Sturm fight think Sturm was robbed.

Barrera beat Morales twice, beat Pacquiao, beat Hamed. All great fighters. He has been in with more world class opponents than Oscar, beaten them more times, and apart from Manny, his record stands up to scrutiny when compared to anyone in his, or a similar, weight division. He has only ever been stopped by Manny, and has been the distance on several occasions with the great fighters of his era.

On 2009-03-11 14:32 , James989 Wrote:

He said similar before Pac-man beat Oscar. I didn't see Manny go in there and go toe-to-toe.....

EDIT-

First quote I found, in the leading story on Sky-sports (so it's not exactly of the esoteric nature, what I am revealing now...)

never thought i'd get to the end of those few posts from AF. The man knows his boxing inside out by the sounds of things. Couldnt agree more.

I don't think it's inconceivable that Khan knocks Barrera out.

All this talk of who Barrera's been in with is irrelevant IMO. It's like saying Shane Mosley's been in with most of the biggest punchers in the world at 147, therefore he would have nothing to worry about from Enzo Maccarinelli. Khan is a big, big lightweight, and Barrera is a 35-year old natural featherweight who's boxed something like seven rounds in the last eighteen months and will be making his first significant appearance at 135.

If it goes the distance, you have to make Barrera the favourite, therefore it makes sense that Khan's best chance is to attempt to stop Barrera, and Freddie Roach will know this, so I wouldn't be surprised to see Khan try it at some point, though not necessarily early.