It’s very rare to see a correct and fair decision being made by one of the boxing governing bodies, but giving Amir Khan his WBA title belt back is one of them, making his fight with Danny Garcia a unification bout for Light Welterweight belts.
Khan lost his WBA and IBF titles against Lamont Peterson on December 10, 2011, losing by a very controversial split decision due to some controversial point deduction (twice) for pushing Peterson away as the challenger (then) was leading with his head, inches away from a headbutt for many moments during the fight. All the decision were probably a lot about home advantage in Washington DC, before even mentioning the IBF mystery man. The IBF have yet to give Khan his belt back.
There was supposed to be a rematch in Vegas, but then Peterson failed a drug test for synthetic testosterone (probably), calling the rematch off and putting the result of the first fight highly in doubt. Khan kept pushing to remove the loss even before the results of the drug tests, and had his case made for him by Peterson’s alleged cheating.
Danny Garcia, undefeated after 23 fights, looked rather impressive during his last fight (March) against a faded Erik Morales, winning the WBC light welterweight title, which was always going to be on the line for the fight with Amir Khan. While for Garcia, a slight underdog despite having no losses on his record, this is yet another chance to make a name for himself and surprise everyone by proving to be the class of the Light Welterweight division, for Khan it’s a chance to bring his big master-plan back on tracks.
I feel so happy – the WBA restating me as world champion again. I wanted to clean up this division before I left it and I think this is the best way to do it. When I beat Danny Garcia I will have won four of the five belts – which no-one has ever really done.
After beating Zab Judah on July 2011, the plan was to fight one more big Light Welterweight bout, against either Timothy Bradley or Lamont Peterson, and move on to Welterweight, with Floyd Mayweather as the goal. But things change in the boxing world. Mayweather is in prison, Bradley avoided fighting Khan (also had promoter and legal issues), landing him a fight with Manny Pacquiao which he somehow won, although know one understand how that decision came to be, as Pacquiao was obviously the better fighter in those 12 rounds. But enough about that.
Then Khan lost to Peterson, and the plan got derailed. Now, with an opportunity to have multiple world championship belts on his shoulders and probably a bit more cautiousness regarding a dangerous fighter like Garcia, Khan can start his way back up the ladder one more time, towards the goal of becoming the best boxer in the world, be it in Light Welterweight or a heavier division.