With his hands in a bucket of ice and the remnants of a cut embroidering his left eyebrow, Amir Khan was finally looking like a proper boxer rather than a kid. Gairy St Clair had made him work for the full 12 rounds, but Khan had been too good, winning every minute of every round.
But, while the fists may have been hurting, the future on Saturday night at the ExCeL centre, in London's Docklands, had seldom seemed brighter. Khan can now look forward to a bout in the United States and a European title challenge in his next two bouts. If he wins both, by the time he might have been trying to upgrade his Olympic silver medal to a gold, he will be on the verge of a world-title challenge.
The cut came near the end of the fifth round from a clash of heads as St Clair, who spent most of the contest hiding behind a high guard, tried to rough up the 21-year-old. The way that Khan, who was making the third defence of his Commonwealth lightweight title, stuck to his boxing rather than panic was encouraging.
But St Clair, a former IBF super-featherweight champion from Guyana, via Sydney, was a perfect opponent and totally unfazed. When Khan landed a stiff straight right, St Clair merely parted his gloves as if to say, “So what”. He also fired back when under pressure, giving Khan a few clips on the jaw when he neglected his defence.
“I knew it was going to be a hard fight and I knew it was likely to go 12 rounds,” Khan said. “I knew I was going to have to take shot, I knew he was going to pressure me, I knew he was going to try to make it dirty, that his head's going to go in, that he's going to go low. We've been working on that and everything went well in there. I knew he was aiming to hit me with one big punch. I had to keep thinking and I couldn't get bored or complacent.”
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Khan not only won a unanimous points decision, but he won by 120-108 on each of the judges' scorecards - a shut-out. Frank Warren, his promoter, flew to the US yesterday to discuss the logistics of a debut on American soil in the same week that Joe Calzaghe faces Bernard Hopkins in Las Vegas. If not, he will challenge Yuri Romanov, of Belarus, for the European title, in Bolton on April 5. “St Clair boxed the likes of Vivian Harris and Diego Corrales; I beat him better,” Khan said. The dream of a world title at 21 is still on.
Ross Minter, the son of Alan, the former undisputed world middleweight champion, came up short in his bid to win the lightly-regarded WBU welterweight title from Michael Jennings, when he was stopped in the ninth round.
Minter, 29, in his 21st bout, was brave and aggressive, but is destined never to get to the heights his father reached during his career.