Freddie Roach visited Newcastle’s St James’ Park ahead of Amir Khan’s title defence in the city and predicted his charge would knock out Dmitriy Salita in round four or five.
Amir Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach backed the WBA light welterweight champion to knock out challenger Dmitriy Salita in round four or five when the pair meet in Newcastle on Saturday.
Roach, who also trains pound-for-pound champion Manny Pacquiao, has been a pivotal force in Khan’s return from his knockout defeat to Breidis Prescott last year.
Despite Khan’s clinical performance to take the title from champion Andreas Kotlenik, Roach admitted Khan is still learning and has to perform even better to retain the belt against Salita.
Roach’s prediction of an early knockout demonstrates his confidence in Khan and the 22-year-old is also planning to make a statement in the ring.
“Now I’ve hit world-class level, I want to beat these people. Not just beat them, I want to knock them out and I want to put a stamp there to say, ‘look guys, Amir Khan is here and you better be careful what you say because I’m the world champion and I’m going to back it up by fighting and making a statement’.
“I think when I beat this guy, an American opponent, it’s going to spring me up in America. More people will get to know me in America and we’ll take it from there.
“Freddie [Roach] is a great help as well, being an American coach. We have a lot of offers and pulling power and we’ll take it from there.”
Khan added: “We’ll go in and sort this guy [Salita] out. I can see in his eyes he’s worried. We’ll get this fight over with and get together to see where we go from here.”
The Bolton fighter believes Salita is a formidable opponent and one that shouldn’t be taken lightly, but insisted that the better the opposition, the better he will perform.
“He’ll bring out the best in me,” said Khan. “I don’t get many fighters who are as skilful as me but I think Salita is. He’s very skilful.
“He’s got a style which is probably going to make me look good. He’s tough and doesn’t give up, he’s got a big heart in the ring.”
Khan recognises Roach’s concerns for a need to step up in class and believes his time spent in the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood will guide him to success on Saturday.
“We’re improving with every fight and getting better and better,” he said. “We learned a lot from the Kotelnik fight about the weaknesses. We’ve worked on it, improved on it and we’re going into this fight not making the mistakes we made against Kotelnik.
“Freddie is a great trainer and he’s always working on what I should do and shouldn’t do. Everything we do in the gym is done for a reason.
“I see myself as being a better fighter now than I was when I fought Kotelnik.”
