Amir Khan says Kell Brook is “Half-broken,” and he’ll send him into retirement

By Max Schramm: Amir Khan says Kell Brook is “half-broken” at this point in his career, and he says he’ll send him into retirement on February 19th when they meet for their grudge-match on Sky Box Office at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.

Khan (34-5, 21 KOs) admits that the former IBF welterweight champion ‘Special One’ Brook (39-3, 27 KOs) would have been a more challenging fight for him if he’d fought him years ago when he was still in his prime, but he says he doesn’t care.

Khan doesn’t care that Brook is shot

What’s essential for Khan is having Brook’s name on his resume, and he feels that future fans won’t look at his record and think that he got Kell when he was old.

All they’ll care about is that he defeated Brook, period, and that’ll be good enough for them.

That is to say, the boxing fans from future generations won’t put in the energy to look closely at Brook’s age and recent ring activity when he fought Khan.

As you can see, Khan is only concerned about the bottom line with him getting Brook’s ane on his resume without overthinking about him being slightly or entirely over-the-hill, as many boxing fans view him. Of course, the fans also think Khan is well past it, so they’re in the same boat in that respect.

Khan says Brook jealous of his success

“More than anything, I think it’s pure jealousy of what I did with my career, and he thinks he should have been where I was,” said Amir Khan in trying to make sense of why Brook seems to dislike him intensely.

“What got me to where I am is hard work, dedication, and discipline,” Khan continued. “We all know with Kell; he goes off the wheel after a fight. He’ll go missing for a couple of weeks and put on loads of weight.

“You see the difference in the two of us. It’s quite funny. His coach Dominic Ingle said, ‘Amir is not training. Kell has.’

“I didn’t even have to question that or give an answer to that because when you look at the two of us, there’s a big massive difference in who has been training and who hasn’t been training.

“He looked like an unwell, overweight, unhealthy like he’s just come off from a night out fighter. With me, I’ve been training for the last couple of months, and I’ve been keeping myself ticking over.

“When you look at two fighters, and you look at the skin color, and you look at the eyes, you look at the body shape, you look at the frame, you see who the real fighter is and who is not the real fighter,” said Khan.

If you got by the net worth of the two fighters, you could understand why Brook might be bitter about Khan’s success.

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Khan’s net worth is estimated at $40 million, whereas Brook’s is $3 million. That’s a huge difference for two British fighters, who in their day, were viewed as the best in the UK at 147.

Brook will need to retire

“So all this that Kell is saying right now is to try and get under my skin or maybe somehow put them back in a position where people start believing they have a chance of winning this fight,” Khan said.

“Kell has no chance of winning this fight. I can honestly say that come February 19th, I’m going to destroy him, and it’s going to be a masterclass,” said Khan.

“The way I destroy him, he’ll need to retire after that. This will be his last fight. When Brook fought against Porter and got his win against Porter, which was a brilliant win. It was a very close fight, but he got the win to become a world champion.

“At the time, I know the name was getting out there, ‘Amir should fight Kell now, he’s a world champion.’ But I was already campaigning and on a different route. I was fighting, and I had world titles as well.

“I was fighting the big names in America. I was fighting and campaigning in America. I always knew that the Kell Brook fight was always going to be there for me.

“That’s the season I didn’t think it needed to happen at the time. Not because I was scared. If you look at my opposition and the people, I faced.

“I faced some tough and hard fighters. A fighter like Devon Alexander, who Kell didn’t want to fight when many fights that fight was supposed to be made, Kell didn’t want to fight Devon Alexander.

“This is what Devon Alexander’s team also said that the press conference when I was fighting him. There are other fighters I fought, like Canelo, for example. The way I planned my career was just perfect with the way I did things.

“The main thing is that now the fight [Brook] is here. It’s not because I’m taking the fight [because Brook is coming off a loss to Terence Crawford]. You always look at your opponent and think, ‘How good was he in his last fight?'”

Brook probably will retire if he loses the fight because he’s not going to have any options that will pay him enough money to return to the ring.

Khan: Brook looked terrible in his last fight

“Kell looked terrible. On a serious note, he looked terrible,” said Khan of Brook’s fight with Terence Crawford.  “If that same Kell Brook turns up against me, I don’t see the fight going past three or four rounds,” said Khan.

In fairness to Brook, he took off a lot of weight to get down to 147 to challenge WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford in November 2020.

Brook had no business fighting at 147 in that late stage in his career, so it wasn’t a shocker that he was knocked out in four rounds.

He fought well through the first three rounds, but Brook was hurt by a sneaky right hook from Crawford after the Nebraska native turned southpaw in the fourth.

“I mean, it’s a business, but at the same time, beating Kell Brook now or beating him five years ago, I don’t think it makes a difference,” said Khan. “When people read on my resume,  ‘Oh, you fought Kell Brook,’ they’re not going to look when I fought Kell Brook or what year that was.

“So, really, I don’t think that matters now. To me, it doesn’t really matter. To me, it’s better fighting him now rather than back then because he’s already half broken.

“It’s a business. It’s still Kell Brook, isn’t he? He’s a guy that still talks the same, and he still feels the same way about fighting me and still feels he can beat me. But maybe, I don’t think he has it in him. He’s the same Kell Brook he was before.

“So, I’ll be honest there. A couple of years ago, he would have given me a harder fight for sure. But now, he doesn’t have a chance,” said Khan about Brook.

At this point, it appears that the Khan-Brook fight is more about money than anything. It’s a fight that will provide for more retirement money for the two fighters, as neither of them is expected to continue. Brook might continue to fight, but only if he’s offered a match against Conor Benn.

If that fight happens, it’ll likely be in 2023 because Benn’s promoter will want to wait for Brook to age a little more. He’s not going to put Benn in with Brook if he destroys Khan because it would be too risky.