Saul “Canelo” Alvarez has admitted that he was ‘scared’ by his own knockout of Amir Khan six years ago.
Canelo and Khan went head to head at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena in May 2016, as the Mexican defended the WBC middleweight title against the Briton.
Canelo, 32, won the bout with a vicious knockout, flooring Khan with an overhand right with 30 seconds left in the sixth round. Khan collapsed to the canvas in sickening fashion, with referee Kenny Bayless quickly waving off the fight as the now-35-year-old stared up at the ceiling vacantly.
“With Amir Khan, he scared me a little, I felt a bit worried,” Canelo reflected in an interview with DAZN this week.
“I actually went over to see if he was okay, it was the natural reaction.
“The knockout was too strong, and on top of that, when he fell to the canvas he twisted his neck badly. So, I thought something more than a knockout had happened.”
Canelo’s victory over Khan was the Mexican’s fifth win in a row after his decision loss to Floyd Mayweather, which was the only defeat of Alvarez’s professional career until he was outpointed by Dmitry Bivol this May.
Canelo will look to bounce back again when he takes on old foe Gennady Golovkin this Saturday (17 September).
Canelo and Golovkin, 40, fought to a controversial draw in September 2017, with most observers believing that “GGG” had won, before the pair’s rematch 12 months later went down as a majority-decision victory for Alvarez. Again, many felt that Golovkin had done enough to claim the win.
