{"id":9804,"date":"2009-11-23T17:14:49","date_gmt":"2009-11-23T17:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tat.reddaisytrading.co.uk\/index.php\/2009\/11\/23\/team-khan-confident-of-salita-victory\/"},"modified":"2009-11-23T17:14:49","modified_gmt":"2009-11-23T17:14:49","slug":"team-khan-confident-of-salita-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2009\/11\/23\/team-khan-confident-of-salita-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Team Khan confident of Salita victory"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Freddie Roach backs Amir for the big time<\/h3>\n
FREDDIE Roach has backed Amir Khan to become a multi-weight world champion – and knock out Dmitriy Salita when the pair meet in Newcastle on December 5.<\/strong><\/div>\n

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Khan will make the first defence of his WBA light-welterweight world title at the Metro Radio Arena against the unbeaten, New York-based Ukrainian.<\/div>\n

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And Roach thinks that the fight will be the first of many successful nights for Khan – at a variety of different weights.<\/div>\n

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“Amir has got the body frame to go up through the divisions,” said Roach. “Things were a little uncomfortable at 135 pounds but I’m much happier now that he has gone to 140.<\/div>\n

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“But later in his career he can fight and win world titles at welterweight or even middleweight as he gets bigger.”<\/div>\n

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Roach, who has been in Khan’s corner for his last three fights, believes that the fight against Salita will be tough, but is backing his man to emerge victorious.<\/div>\n

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“I think that Amir will wear him down and get a stoppage in the later rounds,” said Roach. “But Salita will be dangerous and we’ll have to be careful.”<\/div>\n

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Meanwhile Khan has promised Newcastle fight fans an exciting night in two week’s time.<\/div>\n

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“I think this is going to be the kind of fight where you don’t want to blink because you might miss something,” he said.<\/div>\n

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“Salita is an exciting fighter and I am an exciting fighter so it’s going to edge of your seat stuff in Newcastle. I don’t know whether the fight is going to last one round or 12 rounds but there will be fireworks for sure.”<\/div>\n

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Khan, who is spending an increasing amount of time in the USA, is keen to make his debut in the States if he comes through unscathed against Salita.<\/div>\n

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And he says that since he became world champion, the options open to him have multiplied.<\/div>\n

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“I heard that Zab Judah wants to come back down to 140 pounds and was calling me out at a press conference the other day,” said Khan.<\/div>\n

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“12 months ago I was the one talking about fighting these kind of opponents, but now the boot is on the other foot and people see me as the man to beat.<\/div>\n

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“It’s very flattering really, but I’ve always said that I’ll fight whoever is in front of me.”<\/div>\n

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One man Khan is unlikely to ever meet in the ring is gym-mate Manny Pacquiao – he says their common trainer in Roach is a stumbling block that won’t be overcome – but he hasn’t ruled out a fight with Ricky Hatton.<\/div>\n

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“I think Ricky should come back and try and get over that defeat he had in his last fight,” said Khan. “No one wants to go out on a loss.<\/div>\n

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“Obviously a fight between me and Ricky is one that all of Britain would love to see. Of course I would be interested but we have to cross that bridge when and if we come to it.”<\/div>\n

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

Freddie Roach backs Amir for the big time FREDDIE Roach has backed Amir Khan to become a multi-weight world champion – and knock out Dmitriy Salita when the pair meet in Newcastle on December 5. Khan will make the first defence of his WBA light-welterweight world title at the Metro Radio Arena against the […]<\/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-9804","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\/9804","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=9804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9804\/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=9804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}