Amir Khan claims he deserves to be known as one of Britain’s best fighters rather than as a reality TV star.
Khan is more familiar to a generation of younger fans because of his appearance on ‘I’m a Celebrity’ and his fly-on-the-wall series ‘At Home With The Khans’.
The former unified light-welterweight king prefers to be recognised for his exploits in the ring and aims to underline that against Kell Brook in Saturday’s huge grudge match at Manchester’s AO Arena.
“I enjoyed my TV stuff, but the boxing for me comes first,” he told Mirror Sport.
“When I do a number on Kell Brook, people are going to say ‘he’s still up there as one of our best to come out of Britain’.”
Khan burst onto the scene as a precocious 17-year-old when he won Olympic silver at the Athens Games in 2004.
He won his first light-welterweight crown at 22, unified it at 24, headlined at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena against Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and New York’s Madison Square Garden against Terence Crawford.
The Bolton fighter says he should be bracketed with the likes of Lennox Lewis, Joe Calzaghe and Tyson Fury as one of Britain’s greatest boxers.
“I deserve to sit amongst them,” he said. “I’m not saying I’m better than them, but I feel your Anthony Joshuas, David Hayes, Tyson Furys, Naseem Hameds, Lennox Lewises, I feel I’m amongst them.
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“If you look at what I did as an amateur and then as a professional, I definitely do see myself with them.
“Since 2003 when I won the world junior championships and 2004, I was fighting the top amateur guys, like Mario Kindelan. I’ve been fighting at a high-class level, all round the world, and I became a household name.
“I’ve won Olympic medals and world titles for the country, fought the big names, I’ve never shied away from anything.”
Khan’s clash with Brook is his first fight since beating Billy Dib in Jeddah in July 2019 and he says working with Crawford and his trainer Brian ‘BoMac’ McIntyre has rekindled his passion for boxing after nearly three years of semi-retirement.
Khan, 35, who has been a pro for 17 years, claims he may carry on after facing Brook because he feels he has a couple more fights left in him.
“I had to test myself in camp because I wasn’t sure I still had it in me,” he said. “But once I got into the routine, I was 100 per cent.
“The way I’ve been training, BoMac has said to me ‘you’ve got a few fights left in you’.
“I look at Crawford, I’m just a year older than him, he’s still going strong and I think ‘maybe I do have a bit left in me’.
“It’s up to me now, how long I do it. I do feel like I want to do more.
“The love has come back and I can see myself doing really well.
“Even if I called it a day after Saturday, I’d be very happy with my career. My dream was to win a world title and when I won a world title, I achieved my dream.”
