The Wild Card Boxing Club in Vine Street, Hollywood, is a large but calculated construction of square cubes. The moment you move through the metal screen door you sense a professional and serious wave of air which hits your face telling you this place means business. The room has a distinct odour of sweat and freshly rolled hand tape. The atmosphere inside is charged with adrenaline. The room situated on the right hand side has two boxing rings; the walls are lavished with the posters of previous legends boxing their opponents out. The posters end just where the square shaped ring starts and in the corner stands Freddie Roach himself shouting instructions at his youngest world champion, Amir Khan, preparing him for his next and most important fight.
Amir Khan at 22 shows talent and promise of a great boxer in the making, The British-born Pakistani origin boxer turned professional in 2005 after winning the silver medal at the Athens Olympics. Born in Boston, he speaks fluent Urdu and Punjabi, loves Pakistan and desi food and has visited his ancestral city, Rawalpindi on numerous occasions.
The son of a scrap metal merchant, Khan, was taken to the local boxing academy by his father at the age of eight, after his father received complaints from his school teachers about the boy being unnecessarily aggressive. Khan's father turned his boy's weakness into his career and by the time Khan was 20, the coaches saw an emerging talent from his gloves and advised him to pursue boxing professionally.
The Pakistani Community in Britain extensively supports Khan, who is also the first cousin of cricketer Sajid Mahmood.
In his 22-match pro-career, Khan has lost only one game; the match in which he was knocked out unexpectedly in 54 seconds by Bredis Prescott, after which he sacked his Cuban coach Jorge Rubio who succeeded Khan's previous coach Harrison. Khan's mother watching the match closely was so troubled watching her son being punched like a rag doll that she needed medical assistance during the middle of the match.
After the match, critics questioned Khan's professional career and his fans were disheartened. His manager then hired the all-time great Freddie Roach who also coaches Manny Pacquiao (called the greatest pound for pound boxer in recent times). Khan, already a teen sensation in Britain is still criticised for his defensive vulnerability and called 'Glass chin' or 'China chin', but Freddie Roach is not worried about it. “I have worked with fighters who haven't had the greatest chins in the world, but we can definitely work on that,” says Roach.
The Hollywood-based trainer has been using various techniques derived from martial arts to “try and deaden, or toughen the nerves on the tip of Khan's jaw”. The method involves applying pressure to Khan's mandible using an assortment of exercises.
Roach also insists that Khan is faster than Pacquiao and has a greater punching speed.
“On the brighter side, Amir is a great athlete — his ability to pick up and learn quickly is what really sets him apart. He's also the only person who can keep up with Pacquiao running. His speed is his asset; he has faster hand speed than Manny. He's got a beautiful jab; a better jab than (Oscar) De La Hoya,” claims Roach. “Jabs win world titles.”
“Khan's jab is amazing. The sparring between us has been great,” adds Byrne, a highly-touted prospect from Ireland with a 9-0 (3) resume.
After putting in a lot of hard work training, Khan bounced back in his next two games and silenced his opponents. The hard work of Roach was witnessed in the Khan-Kotelnik fight at Men Arena, where Khan looked stronger and more composed as opposed to the wild and reckless customer who was knocked out in 54 seconds against Prescot. Khan won the competition by a unanimous decision and was awarded the World Welter-Weight Title Championship after which he became Britain's third youngest boxing champion.
Khan's next fight took place in December at the Metro Radio Arena Newcastle where he faced Dimitry Salita. The fight not only was to determine the title but it also created a sensation in the global media as it was the first time in the history of world boxing that a Muslim and a Jew faced each other in the ring.
Khan's 27-year-old opponent Dimitri Salita had 31 un-beaten matches to his credit, out of which 16 were knockout wins. “Amir Khan is just holding on to my championship right now,” said Salita before the match. But Khan, defending the WBA-Light Welterweight Championship beat Salita within 76 seconds. He came out with a thunderous right cross that stunned and knocked down Salita in the first 10 seconds of the fight and he never really recovered after that. Khan completely destroyed his mandatory challenger and adding insult to injury was the fact that it was the first ever loss of Salita's career.
Khan's last fight has boosted his confidence. Despite the criticism, the boxing gurus have unceremoniously agreed that Amir Khan provided with the right weapons to armour his arsenal is the next big thing. Some ex-boxing greats have compared Khan vis-Ã -vis to the all time British great Naseem Hamid.
