"It also made me a better person"
Amir Khan spoke about his boxing career and how he feels about it.
The retired boxer launched his autobiography, titled Fight For Your Life, on September 14, 2023.
Amir also spoke to ITV Granada Reports in one of his most personal interviews to date.
His career started at the age of eight when he was described as a “chubby, hyperactive kid”.
Admitting he loved his boxing journey, Amir revealed:
“It’s probably been the best thing to ever happen to me. Going all around the world and boxing, Olympics, winning world titles, winning fights, losing fights.”
Amir stated that everything in his life is down to boxing, which he described as his “dream”.
He confessed that without boxing, he would be “lost” but added that boxing put him on the right path.
Amir elaborated: “It also made me a better person even though you might think boxing is going to make you more aggressive or make you a hardman.
“No, it made me a gentleman.”
Amir Khan enjoyed a successful career, becoming Britain’s youngest boxing Olympic medalist in 2004 aged just 17, and becoming a world champion at the age of 22.
But despite the highs, Amir admitted he had regrets throughout his career.
He explained: “The Kell Brook fight, I wish it happened earlier when we were both at our peak.
“Then obviously the fight with Floyd Mayweather, it was something that I’d love to have had.”
Surprisingly, Amir stated that he did not regret fighting Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez.
Amir went up two weight divisions to fight the Mexican and ended up being brutally knocked out in the sixth round.
He elaborated: “At the time, it was the biggest fight for me and if you want to be great, you have to be in the ring with the greatest.
“It would have eaten me away if that fight was offered to me and I didn’t take it.”
Speaking about his 2019 fight with Terence Crawford, Amir admitted he gave up.
He explained: “I got hit with that low shot. Probably still could have continued but I was like I don’t have it in me.
“That’s when I realised the love for the sport had gone.”
Although he felt the Kell Brook fight came late in their careers, Amir said he accepted the fight because he “owed it to the British public”.
Amir Khan enjoyed a large following in the UK and in the United States.
He told of the thrill of hearing his home town of Bolton get a billing before his fights in the United States.
He said: “They used to shout me out as ‘Amir Khan from Bolton, England’. How nice is that? To hear a small town being shouted out and told around the world.”
Despite being retired, Khan does not rule out a return to the ring.
“I want to go back to my fitness again. There’s talks about me maybe doing an exhibition. But it has to be something big”, he said.
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