A packed crowd in the North-East of England will be there to cheer on Britain’s own, Amir Khan, as he faces his first mandatory challenger since becoming a world champion.
It is once again time for another ‘Box Office’ Amir Khan bout, as he defends his WBA Light-Welterweight belt against Dmitriy Salita. Khan (21-1) is as exciting a boxer as there is out there and opponent Salita (30-0-1) is an unbeaten and competent fighter. However, boxing fans having to pay fifteen pounds of their hard earned money for it is nothing short of scandalous.
Those who do dig deep for this fight are in for a purists treat. Khan has been in excellent form since his shock first round knock out defeat against Brendis Prescott. He has shown a true champions heart in winning his next three fights, two of which were against high-level opposition. His victory against legend Marco Antonio Barrera gave him his dream title shot and Khan grasped it with both hands. He convincingly dominated Andreas Kotelnik over 12 rounds with superior speed, power and movement and is now showing signs, under the watchful eye of new trainer Freddie Roach, that he can live up to the hype he has been surrounded with since earning his silver medal in Athens 2004.
His development under Roach, who also trains a certain Philippine pound for pound number one, has been quite remarkable. He suddenly looks very hard to hit, his foot movement has vastly improved and through sparring with the likes of Manny Pacquiao, he can now exert his control over the opponent for longer periods than before Roach’s reign.
Dmitriy Salita is an unknown quantity. He arrives at the Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle, with 16 knockouts out of 30 victories. Khan has always had question marks over his chin and Salita will be looking to exploit this with a knockout win. Salita knows that Willie Limond, Michael Gomez and Brendis Prescott have all put Khan down in his career and this has been Khan’s Achilles heel for the early part of his career. Having knocked out more than half of his opponents, Salita has a right to feel confident.
However, Salita has never shared the ring with anyone near Amir Khan’s league. He has not been matched with any classy boxers, any big hitters and he has eaten the canvas himself numerous times against limited opposition. It will be the first real test at world level of his fitness, concentration and natural ability.
Amir Khan will be well prepared for whatever offence Salita can muster. He has improved his defence immeasurably since linking up with Roach and he is too slick and fast for a game fighter like Salita. It would be very surprising if Salita has Khan in trouble at any point during the fight but Khan’s counter punching and always superb attacking skills will have Salita in all kinds of trouble from start to finish. Khan will wear him down with his fizzing punches into the body and combinations to the head, being far too much for his opponent to handle.
Nobody is going to get rich backing Khan for the outright win at 1/6 (BetFred), although this is a win-win bet. However, Khan is available to win by KO, TKO or Disqualification at any point in the fight at evens (bet365) and this is certainly worth a punt.
For a wider outshot, the 7th-9th round group betting in Khan’s favour at 6/1 (bet365) looks attractive.
