Not Quite On The Ropes Yet

British boxing champion Amir Khan talks about proving critics wrong and the fight that’s still left in him

- Rajiv Singh

It takes a punch to get knocked out in the ring. But what hurts more are the jeers that follow.

“You are finished. You are rubbish. You retire. You are no good…,” says Amir Khan (32), as he recounts the caustic taunts hurled at him after his loss to American boxer Terence Crawford at Madison Square Garden this April. As a controversial ‘low punch’ in the sixth round incapacitated Khan, his trainer Virgil Hunter had to step in and call offthe contest. Khan’s abrupt exit triggered vicious reactions, with some calling him a quitter. ESPN commentator Stephen A Smith tweeted: “I am done with Amir Khan. Don’t even want to see him fight anymore. He wanted Hunter to rescue him from an imminent knockout.”

For a boxer who won silver at the 2004 Olympics, when he was just 17, and two World Championships, the clamour to paint him as a loser was hurtful. “I am not a quitter. I am a fighter,” says Khan. “I don’t want to leave boxing when critics want me to leave,” he adds. “I will leave when it is the right time to leave.” As he gesticulates to his cheering fans who are packed into the auditorium of a hotel in Delhi, where Khan arrived in May to announce his fight with Neeraj Goyat in Saudi Arabia in July, he says, “I am not finished yet.”

For a former world champion—he has an enviable record of 38 wins, five losses and 20 knockouts—taking on an unheralded Indian opponent might not be the best way to reclaim the crown he first won in 2009, when he defeated Ukrainian Andreas Kotelnik for the WBA light-welterweight title. Khan, however, thinks otherwise. “I can reclaim the crown,” he says, as he poses for selfies with fans who jostle with his bodyguards. “I don’t let critics get into my head.”