Has the fight between Amir Khan and Kell Brook come too late?
Ticket sales would suggest not, with Manchester’s 19,000-seater AO Arena selling out in just six minutes, while the verbal onslaught they exchanged at yesterday’s pre-fight press conference showed the depth of the antipathy between them.
Khan accused Brook of making a racist remark by allegedly threatening to break his “poppadom chin”, while the pair also exchanged homophobic slurs.
There is no denying that both men, at 35, are past their prime and yet this long-awaited, all-British grudge match still spikes the curiosity like few others.
To their credit, both look in superb physical shape, undeniably driven in their respective training camps — Khan’s in Nebraska and Colorado, Brook’s in Fuerteventura — to deny each other any bragging rights for years to come after the final bell.
Age has not remotely soothed the animosity, and not just for both fighters but their respective entourages, who have been bickering all the way into the ring come fight night.
Talks began at the beginning of last year and it took six months before an agreement could be reached. During that time, negotiations apparently stalled three or four times and they have been beset by arguments over weights, guarantees, hotel locations — the stipulation is they are staying two miles apart in Manchester — and ring size.
Brook’s gripe appears to be that Khan is not the boxer he thinks he is and should show him more respect. “Amir Khan is a conman, they should call him Amir Con,” he once said, more recently adding: “He’s a liar, he has no respect for me and he has no chin.”
For Khan’s part, in his mind at least, his opponent is a step below him in terms of boxing class and refers to him as his “fanboy”. “He’s never done what I have done,” is a repeated claim of Khan’s. “He has made his name off my name.”
The dislike between the pair dates back to a sparring session in the amateur days. Khan’s version of events is that he gave Brook such a beating he was never asked back to the GB set-up, Brook countering that he landed his rival on his head.
Whatever the truth, in the intervening years, they have had 16 world titles between them but both are very much in the final years of their careers. For the defeated party, this could well be a farewell from the ring and carries a risk to their legacy. Neither has fought for some time. Although he had four rounds against Billy Dibb in Saudi Arabia in July 2019, Khan’s last meaningful fight was against Terence Crawford three months earlier, which ended in six rounds.
Brook’s last ring outing was also against Crawford, back in November 2020, and lasted two rounds fewer. Intriguingly, Khan finds himself with Crawford in his corner and as his training partner in the States these past few months.
Their ages apart, the other big question mark going into this has been over the fighter’s weight and Brook, in particular, with the 149lb limit.
If there were previously concerns, Brook shook them off at his public workout, suggesting he was ready to make the weight three or four weeks ago, and that Khan should “get ready for retirement”.
No fighter ever wants to lose but one suspects it is the threat of losing to a rival with whom their career has been synonymous that remains the biggest driving factor.
Khan admitted so himself: “We don’t like each other, everyone sees that. I cannot lose against someone like Kell Brook.
“It would be very upsetting in my career if I lost to Kell Brook. That’s why going into this fight we had to be 100 per cent ready and we have to beat this guy in good fashion.”
The feeling is clearly mutual.
