Dominant Khan defeats Malignaggi

Amir Khan and Paulie Malignaggi

Amir Khan says he is looking forward to silencing Paulie Malignaggi when they meet in their WBA light-welterweight title fight in New York on Saturday.

Champion Khan is making his US debut on New Yorker Malignaggi’s home turf at Madison Square Garden.

"I’ve fought a lot of guys who talk a lot but he has to be the number one guy for talking," said Bolton’s Khan, 23.

"I just can’t wait to beat him and shut him up properly so he’s going to end up thinking about not coming back."

Malignaggi’s record is 27 wins and three losses with one of those losses coming against Ricky Hatton in 2008, since when he has changed his training team and rebuilt his game, describing this world title shot as "redemption" for what he has been through.

But Khan, whose record is 22-1, dismissed his opponent, saying: "He won’t be getting another chance after this."

Even Malignaggi’s own manager refers to his fighter as "the mouth that roared", but Khan made light of his taunts, saying it just showed how scared the American was.

"It’s quite funny really when you hear the remarks. I think when a fighter talks a lot of trash he’s probably scared or he’s trying to put something in my head to scare me," he said.

"Paulie’s not one of those fighters who talks trash to sell a fight. He’s doing it because I think he’s under a bit of pressure and he’s got a bit of fear in him.

"So he just wants to scare me so I’m on the same level as him but I’m nice and chilled out."

Khan’s build-up to the fight has been disrupted by visa complications which forced him to relocate his training camp to Canada, but Malignaggi said he wanted to beat Khan fair and square and without anyone making excuses.

"This is an opportunity to beat a champion that everybody is saying is so great and all this," said the former IBF light-welterweight champion.

"But after the fight on Saturday night I don’t want to hear anyone saying Khan was over-rated, or he got stuck in Vancouver, I don’t want to hear anything like that.

"He said he wants the biggest fights in America and he wants to fight Paulie Malignaggi. Well, be careful what you wish for."

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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