BOXING WBA LIGHT WELTERWEIGHT TITLE:FROM THE signing of the contract to the delivery of the punch, boxing was, is and always will be about timing. This is Amir Khan's time. In the space of 76 seconds (only 18 more than he himself lasted against Breidis Prescott 15 months ago) the Bolton man not only erased the memory of that defeat and consigned his shocked New York challenger, Dmitriy Salita, to anonymity but also sent a message around the fight game that he is the coming man at 10 stones.
While Khan might not yet have grasped the significance of his win, given his relaxed demeanour and confidence, he holds more than his World Boxing Association light-welterweight title this morning. He owns the keys to a fortune – against the likes of Manny Pacquiao, Ricky Hatton and, yes, maybe even Floyd Mayweather Jr down the road.
These might have seemed names beyond negotiation a short while ago, certainly those of his stablemate Pacquiao and the Filipino’s putative opponent this March, Mayweather.
But if there is an immutable law in professional boxing it is that money drowns out doubt. If the zeroes are there, the fight is there.
And into that equation, on the back of a quite superb boxing performance can be added the name of Kevin Mitchell.
Before the main event at a packed and fiery Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle, the unbeaten Dagenham fighter did to poor Prescott what Khan could not.
Mitchell’s unanimous points win puts him a fight away from challenging for the WBO lightweight belt and, thereafter, the possibilities for him and his friend Khan are begging to be exploited.
As Khan said later, “I spoke to Kevin and I said, ‘You have to bob and weave with this guy’. When you slip a guy who throws loopy shots, you’re going to slip into the shots, and that’s the mistake I made. I got caught and I just didn’t recover from it. But he just did what he had to do. Great performance. Overnight, it’s made him a superstar and I think there are bigger things for him to come. He’s only going to get better. I’ve seen Prescott and you can see from his face, he took a battering in that fight. So he got him back for me, that’s the main thing.”
Salita didn’t look too clever either after his brief ordeal, wobbling away from the action as if he had been run over by a bus.
“We’re both up-and-coming fighters,” Khan said of Mitchell, “and we’re good friends as well. Kevin’s got his dreams to achieve, I’ve got my dreams to achieve.
“We’ll see what happens in the future. But some times friends have to fight each other, just like a lot of people are tipping me to fight Ricky [Hatton]. That’s part of boxing.”
For the time being, Khan’s advisers and his trainer, Freddie Roach, are playing down talk of fights against Pacquiao or Mayweather, which is sensible. Hatton, though, becomes daily a more likely match, probably towards the end of next year.
Khan had the previously unbeaten Salita down three times, the first in centre ring with a classic left-right combination, then a chopping overhand shot to the head in a neutral corner before finishing him off with a left hook.
It was just about the perfect short fight. Roach said later: “I said to him, ‘Next time, wait until I get back down the steps’.”
“Most fighters will probably think about it twice to fight me,” Khan said. “But, this game, you want to fight the best. . . I’ve had three fights and spent a lot of time in the States.”
The fighter is content on both sides of the Atlantic. Home is for family; away is for business – and that is where he will almost certainly fight next.
The opponent could be the Argentinian Marcos Rene Maidana or either of two Americans, Victor Ortiz or Juan Diaz. It is all about timing.
