{"id":9661,"date":"2009-01-15T17:22:05","date_gmt":"2009-01-15T17:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tat.reddaisytrading.co.uk\/index.php\/2009\/01\/15\/khan-to-face-boxing-king-barrera\/"},"modified":"2009-01-15T17:22:05","modified_gmt":"2009-01-15T17:22:05","slug":"khan-to-face-boxing-king-barrera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2009\/01\/15\/khan-to-face-boxing-king-barrera\/","title":{"rendered":"Khan to face boxing king Barrera"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Frank Warren: It will be a big fight for Amir<\/h3>\n
\"\"AMIR Khan will face boxing legend Marco Antonio Barrera in March, it was announced today.<\/strong> <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Securing a fight against the seven-time, three-weight world champion – regarded as a modern great – is a coup for both Khan and promoter Frank Warren.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Barrera has won 64 of his 71 fights and at 34 has plenty of miles on the clock, but he remains a formidable opponent and the biggest test of Khan’s 20-fight career to date.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Winning his first world title in 1995, Barrera has faced Manny Pacquiao, Juan Manuel Marquez and Erik Morales in a record that includes a unanimous points win over Naseem Hamed in 2001.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Khan bounced back from his brutal 54-second knockout by Breidis Prescott last September with an impressive two-round demolition of Oisin Fagan.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old lightweight dispensed with trainer Jorge Rubio after the Prescott defeat, his first professional loss, and is now being guided by Freddie Roach.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Facing Barrera is a major gamble for Khan, coming just two fights after being flattened by Prescott, and he will be taking a significant step up in class.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Warren said: “This is a huge step up for Amir, who had some serious thoughts about it. The discussions over the fight finished at 4am on Thursday morning.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

“It’s a big fight for Amir, who has been champing at the bit. This is the right fight for Amir at this stage of his career.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

“I believe it will bring out the best in him. This puts him well and truly on the world stage.” <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Speaking to BBC Sport, Khan said he was a fan of Barrera. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

“I was a fan and I am a fan – but when you’re in the ring, you have no respect for any of your opponents, you go in and do a job,” he said. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Khan added he would seek advice from Naseem Hamed who lost to Barrera in 2001. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

“I’m sure Naseem knows what mistakes he made and will tell me the mistakes that he doesn’t want me to make,” he said. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

“Nas is a great guy so I’ll have a chat with him and see what he thinks.” <\/div>\n

\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frank Warren: It will be a big fight for Amir AMIR Khan will face boxing legend Marco Antonio Barrera in March, it was announced today. Securing a fight against the seven-time, three-weight world champion – regarded as a modern great – is a coup for both Khan and promoter Frank Warren. Barrera has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}