Amir Khan held talks over a potential fight with undefeated champion Josh Taylor before deciding to retire from boxing.
The British star recently announced he will hang up his gloves after 17 years as a professional fighter. Khan stepped back into the ring earlier this year against fierce rival Kell Brook but came up short in stoppage defeat.
But BOXXER promoter Ben Shalom believes it was obvious that Khan would eventually opt to retire despite entertaining fight talks. "The only other one I can think of was Josh Taylor," Shalom told The Metro when asked about fight talks before Khan's retirement.
"Josh was planning on moving up to welterweight and that fight might have made sense because it would be Josh’s first fight at the weight. But for Amir, even more so for Kell, it was always obvious that he should retire.
"You could see that from what he said after the fight. But like so many other fighters, he’s gone home and thought ‘that wasn’t me’ and ‘I could go again’. But then he’s made a decision to hang up the gloves and walk away."
Taylor has not fought since being handed a controversial decision victory over Jack Catterall to retain his undisputed 140lb titles. The 'Tartan Tornado' had previously made history by becoming the first man to unify the division in the modern four-belt era with victory over Jose Ramirez.
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Since his exploit against Catterall, Taylor has elected to vacate his WBA super-lightweight title after being told he would need to face the mandatory challenge of Alberto Puello. The Scotsman is now set to face Jose Zepeda to complete his mandatory obligations with the WBC.
Khan also held fight talks with rising star Conor Benn and also contemplated invoking a rematch clause to a sequel with Brook. He instead followed his rival Brook by announcing his retirement from the sport. Khan bumped into boxing legend Floyd Mayweather in Dubai while holidaying with his family, who asked the British star to delay his retirement.
Despite vowing his career was over, the 35-year-old has refused to rule out an exhibition with his retired counterpart. "Look, exhibitions always happen," Khan explained to talkSPORT. "I met Floyd the other day in Dubai and there was some excitement there, he was like 'don't retire, let's do something, there's something we can do'. I was like 'maybe if it didn't happen when we were both professional fighters, maybe it can happen as an exhibition'.
"No-one wins, it's just a bit of fun to give the fans a bit of entertainment. I think now with boxing, it's totally changed now where a lot of these fights happen, social media guys fight each other, and a new door's been open. People can just step in after a week of training and have a fight!"
