By Brad Cronick: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer is talking about matching Amir Khan (27-3, 19 KO’s) against Josesito Lopez (30-5, 18 KO’s) in his next fight in April, according to Lance Pugmire of LA Times. Khan, however, fractured both of his hands in beating Carlos Molina (17-1, 7 KO’s) by a 10th round TKO last Saturday night and that could be a problem for Khan. It depends on how well his injured hands heal. But Lopez will still likely be the next opponent for Khan.
This could be a pretty tough test for Khan, because I really didn’t see any improvement at all in Khan’s game last Saturday night in his win over Molina. It was an easy fight for Khan, but it would have been the same easy fight before he booted trainer Freddie Roach and signed up with Virgil Hunter.
If anything, this fight would have been easier for Khan before because he would have flurried until the fight was halted in four or five rounds. But by messing around and hitting, and running, Khan let Molina stick around a lot longer than he should have. Khan showed the same vulnerability to getting hit with left hooks, because he would open himself up each time he’d come at the tiny 5’6’ Molina, and he would get hit plenty.
Lopez was stopped in the 5th round in his last fight against WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez last fight in September. That wasn’t a good fight for Lopez, but you can’t really give him too much blame because Golden Boy had Lopez move up two entire divisions just to give Alvarez a fight that he’d have a good chance of winning because of his size advantage.
You hate to see promotional companies pooling opponents two divisions below their fighter just to give him an advantage, and that was sad for Lopez that he was matched like that. I’m sure he was happy to get the payday but it’s still bad for him because he took a beating and looked way out of his league in that fight.
If Lopez can get to Khan’s chin he’ll have a great chance of winning this fight, but he’s going to have to be willing to take a lot of punishment in order to land his shots. Molina looked like he didn’t want to keep getting hit in the second half of the fight, as he stopped really trying hard. Lopez can’t do that if he wants to have a chance at beating Khan.