Amir Khan laced the gloves up for the final time as a professional boxer in February of this year to finally settle a career-long rivalry with Kell Brook.
‘King’ Khan came off second best on the night, with many feeling that his fighting days were over. He agreed, and formally announced his retirement not long after despite being the offer of a rematch on the table. That was only after Brook announced his first, though – something Khan told Boxing Social he was grateful for.
“Me and my team were talking about it. I could see my heart wasn’t even in there I was like ‘I don’t really want to do it’ – but like I said I’m not going to be one of them fighters to be scared and say I’m going to say no to the rematch. So, when Kell Brook announced he was retired, I was like ‘thank God for that. No rematch.'”
“It was easy as that, whereas the blame would’ve gone on him because he retired. But, to be honest with you, even if he didn’t retire, I don’t think a rematch would’ve happened. Like I said, lost love for the sport, didn’t want to be in there, and that was it really. We both made big money that, we did really well, no one got hurt, and we move onto other bigger and better things now.”
Seeing the former unified-champion joking about the situation and being open about his feelings towards to sport after a 17 year pro campaign will be a welcome sight to fans.
Khan will go down in history as not only one of the most exciting British fighters, but one who changed the game in many ways for those that followed.
Finally, he confirmed that future exhibition bouts à la Floyd Mayweather weren’t necessary ruled out, but first he wanted to spend a year doing nothing but enjoying retirement.