AMIR KHAN W Tech. dec. 5 MARCO ANTONIO BARRERA

What a difference six months can make. Amir Khan, battered in 54 seconds by Breidis Prescott last September, returned to the same arena and gave a dominant performance as he outclassed modern-era great Marco Antonio Barrera at the MEN Arena in Manchester.

Khan showed all the improvement that one could have wished to see after his training sessions under the tutelage of Freddie Roach in Los Angeles. He was aggressive but in a smart way. His defence was tighter — I liked the way he kept up his right hand to protect against Barrera’s noted left hooks. He used the double jab and followed with the right hand, and he triggered off flashy bursts of punches.

This was a fight in which Khan used his speed to its best advantage. He was in and out and all around Barrera, bewildering the older man, backing him up and bedevilling him at every turn.

Obviously, getting cut in the first round was a big handicap for Barrera but he would surely have lost the fight even without the blood flowing from his sliced forehead (not the same cut as the one he had suffered in a tune-up fight in Mexico).

Khan hardly ever got hit, and even when he did he immediately threw his hands up in the air in an “I’m OK” gesture.

Now, some people will be saying that, with blood pumping from Barrera’s cut, the fight should have been stopped and declared a no decision before reaching the fifth round.

Once four rounds had been completed the bout went to the scorecards under the head-clash rules that applied (a couple of sanctioning-body international titles were involved).

Yes, Barrera was sufficiently bloodied for a stoppage to have been ordered by the doctor. However, it would have been a travesty if Khan had been obliged to settle for a no decision result after boxing the best he has ever boxed, in his biggest fight.

I cannot speak for the doctor who checked on Barrera’s cut, but I would imagine that he knew the rules. While the cut was bleeding profusely, and blood was getting into Barrera’s eye, it wasn’t as if Barrera’s eyesight was in danger of being permanently affected.

In a fight of this magnitude, with PPV coverage in Britain and North America, what boxing did not need was another fiasco, which, make no mistake, it would have been had this fight ended inconclusively, with no official winner when in fact one man was so obviously superior.

So, the officiating was, for me, commendable.

Now, another matter. Many will say that Khan caught Barrera at the right time, that he was meeting the shell of a once-magnificent fighter.

Well, not everyone was saying that before the fight. In fact, people who are thought to know quite a bit about boxing were making this a dangerous fight for Khan, and one that he could lose.

I know that some readers don’t like it when I mention gambling and how odds move (while other readers seem to love the wagering references), but money was showing for Barrera all week and at one sportsbook the Mexican legend was actually a slight favourite just before the first bell.

I thought that Khan would win but I certainly wouldn’t have made him a big favourite. We didn’t know for sure how much Barrera had left, and it was only six months since Khan had been wrecked by a Colombian fighter who might not be anything special.

As it turned out, Khan boxed a terrific fight. He was confident and assured, and he looked like a young man who is in love with boxing. He has worked hard, and I was pleased for him. I liked Frank Warren’s post-fight comment when it was suggested that his gamble in making the match had paid off. “Khan took the gamble,” Warren said. “I just made the match.”

The PPV event was exciting, with dramatic knockouts in the three other title fights that were shown. I liked Matthew Hall to pull off the upset over Bradley Pryce in their Commonwealth light-middle title bout but I never thought that he would blow out the more experienced man in a couple of rounds.

Roman “Rocky” Martinez was just too mentally and physically tough for Londoner Nicky Cook in their WBO junior lightweight title fight. Although Cook almost dropped Martinez with a left hook in the second round it seemed that the unbeaten Puerto Rican was taking over the fight in the fourth, although his stoppage win in this round came suddenly. It was essentially all over when a beautiful left uppercut sent the British fighter down, and another knockdown convinced the referee that Cook was out of the fight. Cook had fought well for three rounds but Martinez seemed to be taking the fight to a new intensity-level in round four, and I am sorry to say that Cook was already starting to wilt when he got caught and dropped. I had picked Cook for the upset, but when he blinked in the pre-fight staredown I sensed that the oddsmakers had probably got this one right.

As for Enzo Maccarinelli, one hesitates to say that a fighter is finished, but his knockout loss against Ola Afolabi was disturbing on two counts. First, Maccarinelli seemed to have zero punch-resistance, and, secondly, he just seemed to run out of gas in the eighth round of the cruiserweight bout. The ninth-round ending was stunning, though, with Maccarinelli suddenly stumbling around the ring from no discernibly severe shot before going down hard from Afolabi’s overhand right. It now seems incredible that Maccarinelli was almost even-money in the wagering for last year’s massacre against David Haye.

Fans in Canada, meanwhile, got to see same-day coverage on SuperChannel of Matthew Macklin’s third-round demolition of Wayne Elcock in their British middleweight title fight.

Elcock, alas, just cannot take a heavy shot. This had been suspected before the fight, now it has been confirmed. Macklin was only a slight betting favourite because he had not really sparkled after moving up in weight from junior middle, but he looked borderline sensational in this clash of Birmingham local rivals. He was fast, sharp, jabbed beautifully and moved his head to slip punches.

This was Macklin’s first fight with Manchester trainer Joe Gallagher and the partnership worked like a dream. Gallagher told Macklin at the end of the first round that Elcock was ready to be knocked out, and in the third his fighter went out and did the job. You couldn’t have scripted it any better. Macklin’s jabs set up the right hand that inevitably dropped Elcock, and the fight really could have been stopped after the eight count had been completed. The referee obviously wanted to give Elcock a chance to recover but the 35-year-old defending champion was practically out on his feet. A few more punches from Macklin were all it took for the referee to realise that Elcock needed to be pulled out.

It now seems clear that Macklin needs the bigger fights to get him properly motivated. He delivered a stunning performance, surprising, among others, ringsider Carl Froch, who commented in the ITV4 post-fight wrap: “I’ve never seen him fight like that.” Nor I suspect, had Macklin’s unfortunate opponent.