"Let him first stop playing around with kids"
India’s Vijender Singh has challenged Amir Khan to a fight fresh off his 11th win in his American debut.
Khan had expressed a desire to fight the Olympic bronze-medallist and the two have been trading words in the past.
The British boxer had said that Vijender was scared of him. However, the professional boxer from Haryana fired back and told Khan that he was fighting “kids”.
Vijender said: “I have repeatedly said I am ready at any time, anywhere. But he is picking up kids as opponents.
“The latest was Neeraj Goyat, who is very talented but quite young compared to me, but that did not materialise because of Goyat’s injury.
“Let him first stop playing around with kids, then we can have a bout of grown-ups.”
Singh’s callout comes after Khan outclassed Australian Billy Dib in Saudi Arabia.
Despite the verbal jabs between the two, a fight between the two is unlikely to happen anytime soon because they fight in different weight classes.
While Khan fights at welterweight, Vijender Singh contests his bouts at super-middleweight. However, the Indian boxer said they could both agree on a specific weight.
Singh pointed out that Amir Khan has moved up weight classes in the past. He said: “He has done it before.”
Khan competed once at middleweight in 2016 when he faced Mexican Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez. The fight did not go Amir’s way as he was brutally knocked out in the sixth round.
Vijender said:
“I can reduce my weight a little and he can increase it and we can agree on a midpoint. He has done it before.”
Singh is coming off a four-round knockout win over Mike Snider to take his record to 11-0.
He currently holds the WBO Oriental and the Asia Pacific Super-Middleweight titles. Vijender is hopeful of challenging for a world title in 2020.
He explained that his US debut took a while to materialise and this led to him becoming desperate for a fight.
“It was a long break and both my team and I were getting desperate for a fight. It’s been more than a year since I last fought and we wanted to get a bout in the US anyhow.”
Vijender spoke about his future plans and stated that his team is trying to schedule two fights within the next seven months which could lead to a world title shot.
“We now plan to have two more fights, one in October-September and next around January-February.
“We are trying to work around the venue and opponent but the top boxers in US have a busy schedule.”
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