AMIR KHAN W12 ANDREAS KOTELNIK

Speed to spare and an extremely high punch volume carried Amir Khan to victory over Andreas Kotelnik in their WBA 140-pound title fight on Saturday but the British boxer showed a strong fighting spirit, too. For me, what was most impressive about Khan’s performance was the way he constantly came back punching whenever Kotelnik seemed to be coming on a little.

Kotelnik looked dangerous at times, but the Hamburg-based Ukrainian was never allowed to get into the sort of position in which he could seriously threaten Khan’s dominance. Khan’s steady use of the jab and his combinations were keeping Kotelnik from getting started. Kotelnik would wait behind his high guard until Khan had finished punching, then try to come back with some heavy shots. Unfortunately for Kotelnik, though, Khan was long gone before the defending champion could cut loose. What looked like being a highly competitive fight wasn’t even close on the scorecards as Khan romped home by margins of 118-111, 118-111 again and 120-108.

This was, I thought, a tremendous showing by Khan when you consider that just 10 months ago in this ring he had been blasted out in 54 seconds by Breidis Prescott.

Few people that night could have expected that Khan would win a major world title inside the next 12 months.

Khan never lost faith in himself, though. He put down the Prescott defeat to a foolish mistake, and moving to Los Angeles to be trained by the highly knowledgeable Freddie Roach showed Khan’s determination to silence the doubters.

There will still be doubts, because, in Kotelnik, Khan was meeting a champion who while respected as an excellent technician has never been regarded as a very hard puncher. Khan’s suspect chin wasn’t seriously tested.

Encouragingly, though, when Khan did get hit, he took the punches well. Perhaps moving up from lightweight has increased his punch resistance.

Kotelnik had brief successes when he closed in and banged away, hooking to the body and bringing right hands over the top, but Khan kept a tight defence and rode out the temporary storms, then came back with four, five and six jabs at a time or a burst of piston-like punching: the occasional winging right hands to body and head didn’t so much hurt Kotelnik as keep him guessing.

There was always suspense, because Kotelnik never gave up trying to turn things around and one desperation punch could have changed everything, but Khan’s concentration hardly ever wavered. He was constantly in motion, in and out, side to side, and even when he showed signs of fatigue towards the end he kept moving and kept punching. Afterwards, Khan said that the experience of being in a fight such as this will bring further improvement, and I am sure it will.

Although I expected Khan to win I didn’t think he would outscore Kotelnik as widely as he did. Khan streaked ahead from the start and stayed in front, fighting like a winner. “You couldn’t fault that performance if you tried,” Jim Watt, the former world champion and now a Sky TV analyst, said afterwards.

Of course, there will be those who find fault, but for me Khan was superb. He practically shut out one of the world’s best junior welterweights and I, for one, couldn’t have asked for anything more.