Raising Khan

Alex Ariza, the man charged with rebuilding Amir Khan, explains the process - and promises even more to come.

We talk to Alex Ariza, one of the men behind Amir's resurrection

Little over a year ago, Amir Khan's world lay in ruins. The Olympic silver medalist himself sat in a forlorn heap in a neutral corner of the ring at Manchester's MEN Arena, put there inside a minute after a brutal clubbing at the hands of Colombian Breidis Prescott. Across the ring, unheralded Cuban coach Jorge Rubio could be seen clapping, presumably urging Khan to get to his feet, while the thousands at ringside and many more watching at home, sat there motionless, stunned by what they had seen. Khan was never going to make it back up. His legs were no longer his own, his senses scrambled and the look on his face one of complete devastation. There was no coming back from that second knockdown and in that moment alone, the boxing world wondered if there would be a way back at all for a man of whom so much had been expected since his silver medal in 2004. Rubio couldn't help him to his feet and after being outed as the man who actually chose Prescott as an opponent, was clearly not the man to mastermind any recovery process, that night or beyond. Within three weeks and to his eternal credit, Khan had turned to Freddie Roach as the man to resurrect him and a career that had, in 54 seconds, come crashing to a halt. Widely regarded as the world's best, the mastermind behind Manny Pacquiao's meteoric rise, the Wild Card gym supremo had the job of re-inventing a young man blessed with lightning speed and, even if he didn't show it that fateful night, reflexes to match. Roach always tells us speed kills, but what happens when you don't have the wherewithal to switch through the gears and get there? Or when you are going so fast, you are not in control? And when there is no-one navigating, as was the case against Prescott? Those were the problems facing Roach and his right-hand man, chief mechanic and fitness coach, Alex Ariza. And Khan, who had cruised through 18 professional fights with a couple of major bumps (Willie Limond and Michael Gomez) along the way, clearly needed more than a re-tune. He needed stripping down and rebuilding, a complete overhaul. And Ariza, a 36-year-old with a scientific backround as a student at UCLA, was the man charged with the task.

Co-ordination

"Freddie just said 'let's rebuild this kid from the bottom up'," he says during a rare break from preparing for Dmitriy Salita. "When we saw him we knew we had to start from the ground up and change him 100 per cent. Nothing overwhelming though because we didn't want to load him up with too much change at once; it's a long-term process. "When we first got him, he was so massive for a guy of 135lbs and I think that's really what made his defence suffer - he was off-balance so much, there was no co-ordination in his feet. His feet and legs never really complimented his power." Keen observers will have noticed the physical difference in the space of three training camps, this being their fourth. Khan's upper body has been toned down, his legs look stronger and if the performances against Marco Antonio Barrera and Andriy Kotelnik are anything to go by, can now carry and control that speed that has always been there. The in-and-out raids never looked like knocking Kotelnik over, a bump of heads did for Barrera, but Ariza and Roach now have the platform in place to start tweaking - just as they have done with Pacquiao, once a crude, left-hand-happy brawler, now one of the best boxers of any era. "The improvement has been absolute, the difference is vast," says Ariza of Khan. "This time around it has been his explosiveness. We are starting to get him to focus on how he can be quick but learn how to throw hard shots at the same time; not just rapid-fire punches. He is understanding how to tighten up his body and use it for that. "Amir is now starting to focus on his strength, for sure, that is one thing Freddie has brought in. He no longer lunges forward, is no longer throwing punches off balance or from too far away. He was not using feints and not really using his natural ability, which is speed. We are starting to turn him into a thinking fighter."

Improvement

It is this latest improvement that has Roach convinced Khan will make short work of Salita, switching his prediction from a late to early stoppage on Saturday night. He has called Pacquiao's last three wins close to perfectly and comparisons between the two stablemates, sparring partners and training companions are as unavoidable as they are mouth-watering. Of course, what works for one doesn't necessarily work the other, but Ariza admits that following the Pac Man plan makes complete sense. Success after all, breeds success. And with Khan's height (5ft 10in) making a move up through the weights more than a possibility, the similarities are uncanny. "Freddie and I have been through this routine with Manny and now we're doing it with Amir and to be honest, Amir is probably one of the easiest guys I've ever worked with; he follows the routines, knows what he's got to eat, he approaches it all with a positive attitude," he says. "Manny has proved that you can not only get bigger and stronger but faster as well and we are applying the same principles with Amir. Fortunately Amir is a lot younger so there is a lot more room for growth and improvement. "Amir is still a young man so we still don't know what he is going to grow into. That is the only thing that holds me back from a real full-blown strength workout. Manny has to have a more intense strength programme but with Amir we can't push too hard on that yet, we have to do it real slow."

Recalculating

It is of course a gruelling process as well as a slow one. While everybody but everybody loves Freddie, Ariza does his work quietly in the background, long before most of us are even thinking about getting up. He and Khan are up for their morning track session at 5.30am - it's just as well Ariza likes the cold - followed by a session in the gym or at the pool. Roach then takes over on the pads or in the sparring ring, while Ariza studies it all intensely, watching the fruits of their labour. Anyone who watched HBO's wonderful 24/7 show for Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto, in which Ariza won his battle with Michael Koncz to be in the corner come fight night now knows how important he is not just to Roach, but to the Wild Card fighters - and Khan is no exception. They share the same house, eat the same food, spend downtime together. Trips to the cinema break the monotony of camp, while occasional meals out also give Ariza a break from the kitchen. He is the man that makes the Roach plan work, the taskmaster "yelling at him all the time" as they rebuild a body and boxing brain. There is a sense of satisfaction and pride in what has already been achieved, but the good news for British boxing and bad news for the rest of the light-welterweights out there - and probably welterweights and light-middles - is that their work is by no means finished. "It will take a couple more years," says Ariza. "His muscles still need to develop and his body structure still has to change; he still has the body of a young man. Certain measurements and dimensions are still changing, so we are doing things like recalculating. "I can't wait to put him on something really hard to see what his body is going to take; hopefully when it gets to that, we can hit the ground running." The last time Khan hit the ground it made for car-crash viewing. It might just have been the best thing that ever happens to him.