Amir Khan has made a shrewd decision leaving Frank Warren’s camp and moving to Golden Boy promotions, another good move since his humiliating defeat at the hands of Breidis Prescott back in September 2008.
The first move after that loss was getting rid of a few hangers on, who were giving him so called advice, and recruiting one the world’s greatest coaches in Freddie Roach.
Roach has coached multiple world champions, many of them taken with only raw potential before being turned into top class boxers and was the perfect man to save Khan's career.
After getting back on track with four straight wins, most notably the defeats of Marco Antonio Barerra and Andreas Kotelnik, Khan has now made the boldest, and probably best decision of his short career so far by ditching Warren.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of Khan, I find him to be too arrogant for his own good and his defence is still poor, nowhere near good enough to be talking about being on the same level as stablemate Manny Pacquiao or Miguel Cotto.
However, he does seem to have grown up a lot since the Prescott defeat, and has seen that what Warren will offer is nothing compared to what Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions can.
Money is obviously going to be a huge factor but Khan only has to look close to home at Hatton and Joe Calzaghe to see what many years spent fighting in the UK against below calibre opponents can do to a career.
While Calzaghe was fortunate enough to still be at the peak of his game when he finally got his break in the US, Ricky Hatton has no chance of recovering from big defeats in Las Vegas to Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. Five years earlier, he could have.
Khan’s decision will see him get big fights in the US, which despite the hopes of British promoters, is still the stage to prove you really are the best, and he will also get advice from a man who has done it all in the ring - the Golden Boy himself, De La Hoya.
Whether Khan will be able to prosper is another matter, it remains to be seen if he can handle taking big punches and he will have to improve tactically but his career seems to be going in the right direction.
There have been a few rumours circulating as to why he has made the decision; Racism, money and a fall-out with Warren. Let’s just hope it was purely a boxing decision made by Khan and his coaching team.
