Khan king of the world

Khan: the new number one

KOTELNIK-KHAN RE-RUN
10.30pm, Fri, Sky Sports 1 & HD1

Also see

• Khan report
• Khan reaction
• Roach reaction
• Round-by-round


• Maccarinelli beaten
• Brook & Mitchell win
• Big win for Small


• Gold star for DeGale
• Fun time for Frankie
• Saunders stylish again

Amir Khan has won his first world title.

The man who would be king was crowned WBA light-welterweight champion after out-pointing Andreas Kotelnik at the MEN Arena in Manchester.

Khan turned in a masterful display to take a unanimous decision, 120-108, 118-111, 118-111 and become the third youngest Briton to win a world title, at the tender age of 22.

Only Herbie Hide and Naseem Hamed - who was watching at ringside - have bettered him, but few in the sport have hit the peak after just 22 professional fights.

Fewer still will have done so after such a dramatic turnaround either. Just 10 months after Breidis Prescott blasted him out in 54 seconds in the same Manchester ring, Khan came back to silence the critics with a sizzling performance.

In doing so, he became Britain's second current world champion alongside Carl Froch, and follows in the footsteps of Ricky Hatton, Junior Witter and Gavin Rees in ruling at 140lbs.

Unequivocal

Khan also silenced his lingering critics and answered the questions that always seem to be thrown his way by the British boxing public.

They said his chin would let him down yet time and time again he took the best Kotelnik had to offer.

They questioned his ability to go the distance but here he was in only his second 12-rounder, looking fresh to the finish.

And they wondered whether he would be able to mix it at light-welterweight and the answer was as unequivocal as the scoring suggests.

The one slight downside was that he never really opened Kotenik up to show the world what he can do offensively.

Yet more credit must go to trainer Freddie Roach, as Khan's defensive work was exemplary and his boxing on the back foot, sublime, as if he had been doing all his life. There were very few flashes of youthful exuberance throughout a measured and mature display.

Frustrated

There were still signs that the blistering handspeed has not dwindled in stepping up a division and rest assured, when he returns to the Wildcard for his next training camp, there will be plenty more to come.

What he has got already was way too much for Kotelnik, a well-schooled, well-travelled and wily opponent who was reduced here to frustrated chaser, trying desperately to close his man down and catch him. But Khan skipped around the ring all night long, stopping only to pepper him with the rapid combinations.

The in-and-out raid was expected to be the approach all night and indeed, it was how he began his first world-title tilt. He came out behind a ramrod jab that kept the champion at arm's length and although he was caught, just, on the chin he finished the opening session with a warning for shoving the Ukrainian across the ring.

Khan's first combination of the night came in the second, a left-right-left to the head bothering the champion. Stung by it, he poured forward for the first time, but found Khan too quick, too slick and too sly to be caught. It was to be that way for the rest of the night.

When Kotelnik did land, as he did with a right at the start of the third, Khan simply took it. And more importantly, he came straight back on the offensive, pinging sharp combinations out, even if most of them were blocked.

Dazzled

But it was Khan's defensive work that dazzled. Three times in the fourth Kotelnik thought he had landed, but on each occasion, the punch was blocked and the counter delivered in clinical fashion. Although the champion was showing far more ambition than anyone had expected, it was still the challenger dictating the pace, if not the middle of the ring.

By the middle of the fight, an engrossed MEN Arena crowd could see this was where Khan belonged. His combinations became more frequent and he was firing off five, six, seven-punch flurries before retreating to a safe distance.

Roach called for more bodyshots before the start of the seventh and his charge duly obliged, to Kotelnik's obvious discomfort before a sweet right uppercut and swift follow-up straight left had him backing away for arguably the only time all night.

The one nagging worry was that the judges might value Kotelnik's plodding attack above Khan's lightning-fast raids, but if there were any questions about his superiority there were answered in the eighth when he swayed first left, then right, before rolling away from the ropes to leave the champion punching at thin air.

It signalled a frustrating finale as he flew forward desperate to land the one shot that might yet expose that chin, but either found Khan gone by the time he got there, or willing - and refreshingly able - to tie him up at close quarters.

The only real threat to Khan's coronation came in the closing stages. First Kotelink enjoyed a decent ninth round and then in the 11th as he hooked wildly away, he found the challenger right in front of him, happy to trade.

Celebrating

Thankfully though, a shot to either side of the body and a right to the head were all the reminder Khan needed that this was not the time or the place for machismo.

Sensibly he saw the session out and knowing Kotelnik would come out for the final round throwing anything and everything he could, he summoned up one final spurt of energy to steer well clear of trouble.

And as a timely reminder Khan landed arguably his best blow of the night in the last minute as another right uppercut landed perfectly to check the champion's desperate stride.

By then though the world title he has been destined for ever since Athens was his. Those that had gasped for breath when he was KO'd by Prescott, were left cheering his every move and when the inevitable decision went Khan's way - unanimously - celebrating a new world champion.