EXCLUSIVE
I fought world’s best in Terence Crawford, Canelo KO’d me but Kell Brook is the fight I dreaded
Amir Khan's final fight as a professional boxer brought an extra level of dread he had never experienced before.
This is from a man who faced the very best boxing had to offer in Canelo Alvarez, Terence Crawford and Zab Judah to name a few.
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An Olympic silver medal winner and one of Britain’s youngest-ever world champions, Khan was never one to back down during his 17-year career.
A celebrity outside of the ring, he called time on his career at the age of 36 in May with a 34-6 record.
And it was earlier this year that he decided to call it quits after taking on Brit rival Kell Brook.
He'd even made the decision to hang up his gloves before stepping into the ring, which played havoc with his mind. The boxing ring is not somewhere to be if you're not fully focused given the man standing opposite you wants to punch your lights out.
“In the last fight against Kell Brook it wasn’t my best fight and I’m not blaming something being wrong, I just didn’t have it in me,” he told talkSPORT when he joined Hawsbee and Jacobs to discuss his new book.
“I remember looking at the clock before leaving the changing room and training camp had gone really well and I felt so good, really sharp, but the week of the fight it was like I hit a wall.
“I remember in the training room I was warming up and I felt like I was forcing myself to throw punches and to get into that rhythm.
“I didn’t really get into that rhythm and the last thing I did do walking out of that changing room was look at the clock and it was about 11 o’clock and I was thinking ‘within two hours I’ll be in my hotel in bed.”
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In his autobiography, Fight For Your Life, the Bolton native candidly admits during the Brook fight he realised he didn’t want to be there.
But one factor pulled him through to complete the long-running rivalry, despite the danger it presented.
“To think like that is not good,” he said. “I’d never ever thought like that in my life before, and thinking about it now it makes me realise that I knew it was over, you should not be in a sport if you think that.
“There’s too much danger and you’re putting your life on the line and no matter what and however I felt, I did it for the British public, they wanted to see that fight and I did it for them.
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“In training camp I was feeling at times like I didn’t have it in me anymore, my body was hurting, I was in pain, but I thought, ‘if I don’t take this fight with Brook then the whole nations going to hate me for it’ it’s a fight they wanted to see for a very long time, even though it might have been after my peak.
“The public have been good to us and given us the biggest paydays. But when I felt that way the love of it went. I made that decision in the changing room that I’d never put on the gloves again.”
It was a fine career for one of the most exciting boxers Britain has ever produced.
He was 17 when he won silver in the 2004 Athens Olympics and later unified the IBF and WBA 140Ib titles.
As well as Crawford and Canelo, he thrilled fight fans in 2010 when he beat Marcos Maidana, which referee Joe Cortez said was the greatest he ever officiated.
The only thing missing was the Floyd Mayweather showdown he desperately wanted.
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