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Amir Khan put a thorough beating on Paulie Malignaggi, and Victor Ortiz cruised to a virtual shutout win over Nate Campbell tonight on HBO Boxing After Dark in New York.
Khan (23-1, 17 KO) was simply too fast, too big, and too good for Malignaggi (27-4, 5 KO), stopping him in the 11th round when referee Steve Smoger decided enough was enough. It was a fine stoppage, as Malignaggi had no hope of winning and Khan was pitching a shutout. Malignaggi's face had swollen badly and he just wasn't able to do anything against Khan.
I had in the past said Khan had top five handspeed across the entire sport, but before this fight I considered that statement and wondered if his speed would still look quite as fast against the quick Malignaggi. Well, it did, and it took about one minute total to see that Amir Khan has elite handspeed. That kid is fast.
This was a class performance by Khan, who I had up 100-90 at the time of stoppage. He made his American debut with a very impressive performance, more aggressive than he was against Andriy Kotelnik and just as dominant. The question now is what's next. Max Kellerman mentioned Marcos Maidana, the hard-punching Argentinean, after the fight, and Khan said he'd "love" to fight Maidana next. Khan even proposed he'll face Maidana, and Timothy Bradley and Devon Alexander should fight each other, and the winners could meet up after that.
For Paulie Malignaggi, this was a bad loss. Malignaggi made no excuses, and just gave Khan credit. He was very honest about his own performance. He'll go on. There are a lot of guys he can beat still, and he did his best tonight. He just wasn't good enough to beat Khan.
In the co-feature, Victor Ortiz (27-2-1, 21 KO) won an easy decision over a very faded Nate Campbell (33-6-1, 25 KO). We'll have a lot more on this fight in a full breakdown later tonight, because I have a lot of thoughts on both fighters coming out of this one. Ortiz on on scores of 100-89 (twice) and 99-90. Bad Left Hook scored it 99-90.