ISLAMABAD - Former World Boxing Welterweight champion Amir Khan said he was highly surprised to be off from World Boxing Council number one ranking status and termed it highly unjustified.
During an exclusive interview with The Nation on Saturday, Amir Khan said he went up two weights for his last fight and was told he won't lose my position. “I am a little upset but it just makes the division exciting. I know I can become world champion again, if not the WBC one then maybe in WBA by defeating Peterson, the belt I was deprived of though cheating.”
He said he want to fight in November or December against any opponent. “I'm not afraid to get in the ring with any fighter and I had proven this in my last fight against Camelot who was 30lbs heavier than me. I will now fight in my normal weight division, which is 147 lbs.”
Amir said people wanted to get cheap publicity using his name. “I don’t care about what big mouths are talking. I will prove in the middle of the ring that Khan is still the best and show my critics that I still have that knockout punch in me, which had laid down many in the middle of the ring.”
He said there was a lot of talk about a big fight by the end of the year. “I will speak to my manager and work this out. I will first fully regain my fitness, train very hard and then will see who wants to take on me. It is my promise it would not be easy this time around as the trouble hand was major worry for me, which kept me irritating for quite some time. Now I am recovering fast and my hand is almost healed up. I am doing fine and ready to start full-fledge training once, I feel completely pain free and hopefully after Ramazan, I will start excessive training.”
When asked about his academy in Islamabad, Amir said the academy was doing going great. “We had already shown what kind of talent my academy poses as my academy boxers won 7 gold, 4 silver and 2 bronze medals in the All-Pakistan Boxing Championship recently held in Karachi. I can easily claim that we had exceptional talent and I am highly pleased with the progress of the boxers.”
Amir said he would start a new boxing league in Pakistan, which he had already started in London and India. “It is called Super Boxing Leagues. There will be eight teams and each team will have an investor and celebrity face. We have taken approval from the WBC and this is the firstever boxing league in the world. The 8 teams will go on sale once I launch event most probably by the end of this year or may be early next year. One thing is sure the league is not only a fresh idea and boost boxers financial aspects but also provide them with a sense of relief as there are hardly big fights in a year and not all the boxers earn enough money to even run their day-to-day affairs. They need some bucks to ensure their family and kids also enjoy what other athletes are enjoying. “
Amir said it was his dream to provide boxers around the globe something they would remember and it was also need of the hour as boxing is an exciting but highly risky sports as well as any injury could signal the end of the career.
