Amir "King" Khan, made quick work of Phil "The Italian Sensation" Lo Greco, at a sold-out Echo Arena in Liverpool, to mark his return to the ring after a 2 year hiatus when many had doubted if he would ever fight again.
The obvious retort is that Lo Greco was way out of his depth, and it's true the Canadian barely managed to lay a glove on Khan in just under 40 seconds of action in the first round.
The undiminished speed, and often underestimated power of Khan caught Lo Greco cold, and he had no answer to either, as he was sent to the canvas twice before the referee stepped in and waved off the contest.
Although Phil Lo Greco has never held a recognized title, and his record is padded with some rather obscure names, two of the previous 3 losses on his record were against world level opposition. Most recently when he was stopped by Errol Spence Jr in 2015. He also lost a wide unanimous decision to Shawn Porter in 2013. Both Porter and Spence Jr went on to become world champions.
After 2 years out of the ring, this was always going to be a tune up level fight for Amir Khan, so most of the criticism seems overly harsh. But Khan will really need to step up in his next fight or the naysayers will be justified.
Khan isn't getting any younger at 31 years of age, and more fights against the Lo Greco's of this world aren't going to be much good for anything other than adding extra padding to Khan's bank balance..
Since unifying the IBF and WBA light welter-weight titles in 2011, Amir Khan's career has been a bit of a rollercoaster. He made a lot of money by relocating to America and signing with Golden Boy Promotions to train with the likes of Freddie Roach and Virgil Hunter in Hollywood and Las Vegas.
But Khan also damaged his brand by picking up a few bad losses. First, a decision loss against drugs cheat Lamont Peterson, and then being knocked out by Danny Garcia in 2012 to lose his light-welterweight titles for good. Khan hasn't held a recognised belt since then.
Instead, perhaps due to bad advice, Khan wasted several years of his prime chasing big money fights against Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao which never materialized..
In the end, out of desperation (according to Khan) he accepted a fight against middle-weight champion Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, stepping up two weight classes to be brutally KO'd by the Mexican in the 6th Round in May 2016.
But last night we undeniably witnessed a fresh start for Amir "King" Khan, who showed no signs of ring rust in making short work of Phil Lo Greco. It is true that during his periods of inactivity, Khan has never ballooned up in weight like other fighters tend to do. Khan says he has never missed a day in the gym in all his time away from the sport.
We can take that claim with a pinch of salt perhaps, but its hard to argue with him after last nights performance..
Khan then proceeded to call out Kell "Special K" Brook, who was watching the action at ringside for Sky Sports. UK fans have been eager to see this fight for a number of years now, and it would probably have made a lot more money for both fighters if it had happened in 2015 before bad defeats for both Brook and Khan.
It would still be a great match-up however, and now both men have the same promoter in Matchroom Boxing, and after both their successful comebacks recently, its starting to look like the fight might actually happen this time..