British junior welterweight Amir Khan came to America Saturday night and boxed his way to a 11th round technical knock-out against Paulie Malignaggi in impressive fashion
Khan is not the first boxer from the United Kingdom to crash the shores of America in recent years, Joe Calzaghe and Ricky Hatton made major strides in America to establish their own legacies and make a case for the quality of British pugilism.
Nobody can deny that on December 19, 1997, featherweight comet Naseem Hamed made a splash into the American fight scene like we have never seen again and likely will never see.
Fighting in the Madison Square Garden in New York City (not the smaller theatre adjacent to the Garden Khan fought in), Hamed debuted in America against Kevin Kelly and produced a memorable fight of the year in his first outing with multiple knockdowns by both men and was deemed fight of the year for 1997 by The Ring magazine.
I respect The Ring’s Erick Raskin, he is a knowledgeable writer, but when he stated last week that Khan – Malignaggi evoked the memory of Hamed – Kelly, I had to turn up a questionable eye brow from behind the glow of my monitor.
Hamed was an attraction boxing fans in America were waiting for anxiously. Though we questioned if his flamboyant ring entrances and hands down, snake-like style would translate into success here in the U.S.A, we wanted to see Hamed’s act on our stage.
11,954 was the announced crowd for Hamed – Kelly, Khan and Malignaggi brought in 4,412 attendees. Has boxing slipped as a sport in America, or do we need electric personalities and fighting styles such the ones Hamed once possessed?
For all of Khan’s potential greatness and possible super stardom, when he reached us here in America, it was clear that his promoter Golden Boy took him in as a salvage project due to knock-out loss to Breidis Prescott in 2008 and would match him as carefully as possible.
It has been agreed by most boxing experts that Malignaggi is a feather-fisted veteran fighter who could not test Khan’s chin.
So my hat goes of to Khan for his performance, but he does not compare to the greatest British invasion of our era.
