Englishman Amir Khan (26-3, 18) went into his WBA/WBC Light Welterweight unification with high hopes though is now needing to rebuild his shattered career after Danny Garcia (24-0, 15) inflicted the second successive loss on Khan's record, by stunning 4th round TKO.
Khan started the bout well landing accurate flurries and preventing Garcia from unleashing too many shots of his own. Khan's shots started to take their toll on Garcia and by the end of the 2nd round Garcia was cut around the eye and it seemed like Khan would eventually stop Garcia (in fact Skybet were offering 1/4 on Khan by stoppage after the opening 2 rounds).
Khan slowed down somewhat in the 3rd round trying to pick his shots more and this allowed Garcia an easier time to counter Khan and it wasn't long before Garcia landed a shot that scrambled Khan's senses and dropped him hard. Whilst Khan would recover to his legs he had no idea where he was and stumbled around drunkenly until the bell ended the round.
Despite still being wobbly Khan came out for round 4 and it wasn't long until he was dropped again with an almost identical shot to the one that dropped him in the previous round. Once again Khan would recover to a vertical base but look unsteady on his legs. Rather than hold Garcia and try to buy time Khan tried to fight fire with fire and it didn't take long for him to be tagged again...and then again...and then down went Khan for a third time, this time from a glancing blow. Despite recovering to his feet the referee decided Khan was in no fit state to continue.
For Garcia it's a huge win which sees him almost certainly placed at #1 in the Light Welterweight rankings for Khan however it's a huge blow. Khan lost his IBF and WBA titles back in December to Lamont Peterson and whilst the WBA (foolishly) handed him their title back the IBF refused to do. Khan's career is in tatters and he may well end up needing to return to Britain to rebuild his career, sadly he may have alienated British fans with his talk of grandeur to the point where even they won't give him any sympathy.
Khan has literally gone from talking about fights with Floyd Mayweather Jr to seriously looking at facing the likes of Matthew Hatton and Ashley Theophane. Perhaps a less to Khan that he needs to concentrate on what is in font of him now, not what could be in front of him in the future.
To Garcia, the spoils of victory, the chance to call the shots somewhat and the ability to choose which route to go down, a solid win for a solid (but unspectacular) professional who got on with the job at hand and popped a relatively large ego and bubble of hype.
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