Amir Khan’s boxing career - Part 1
Amir Iqbal Khan, aka “King Khan”, hails from Bolton, Greater Manchester, England. His grandparent’s emigrated from the village of Matore, Rawalpindi, Pakistan towards a journey that took them to England in the 1950’s. He belongs to the Janjua Rajput caste and speaks fluent English, Urdu and Punjabi. He went to Smithhills School in Bolton after which he joined the Bolton Community College. Khan has three siblings which include Haroon Khan who is his younger brother. Haroon is an amateur boxer who just recently accepted the offer to represent Pakistan in the upcoming Commonwealth Games in India. The family has a knack of representing England at the international arena in the field of sports. Sajid Mahmood, the English cricketer is Amir Khan’s first cousin as well who has played for the English team at the top level as well.
The British Boxer was born on 8th December, 1986. Currently, he is the WBA World light Welterweight Champion and won the belt at the age of 22. This feat made him Britain’s third youngest World Champion after Naseem Hamid and Herbie Hide.
Amateur Career
Khan’s Amateur boxing career started at the age of 11. He won three junior ABA titles along with a gold medal at the 2003 Junior Olympics. In 2004, Amir won a gold medal at the European student Championship in Lithuania and several months later he won world junior lightweight title in South Korea.
Khan managed to clinch a spot at the 2004 Summer Olympics by finishing at the first place at the 1st AIBA European 2004 Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. He was proud to be Britain's sole representative in boxing at the Athens Games, winning a silver medal at the age of 17 in the lightweight boxing category. He became Britain's youngest Olympic boxer since Colin Jones in 1976. He lost in the final to Mario Kindelan, and took revenge in 2005 by defeating a Cuban boxer in his last amateur fight. Khan finished his amateur career with a win-loss ratio of 100-2.
Professional Career
Having declared after the 2004 Olympics that he will pursue a gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Khan stunned everyone by taking up his professional career in 2005 in the lightweight category. He signed a contract with an English boxing promoter Frank Warren and won his professional debut against David Bailey via a first round technical knockout on 16 July 2005 at the Bolton Arena in Bolton.
Meanwhile, Khan moved to the light welterweight category for a single fight against French fighter Rachid Drilzane on 9th December 2006, winning a 10 round bout. Khan then returned to the lightweight division for future fights. On 7 April 2007, Khan defeated Steffy Bull in the third round via a technical knockout in Cardiff.
Khan faced Willie Limond on 14th July 2007 for the Commonwealth lightweight title. He was knocked down in the sixth round and was apparently hurt badly. However, Khan pounced back with a barrage of right hands and knocked down Limond in the seventh round to win the title.
On 6th October 2007, Khan faced Scott Lawton in his first defence of the Commonwealth lightweight title. He secured a technical knockout victory in the fourth round after the referee stepped in as Lawton failed to fight back.
On 8th December 2007, Khan’s most significant career win, until that time, came when he successfully defended his Commonwealth lightweight title against Graham Earl. It took Khan just 72 seconds to bring down Earl in a no-fit-state to continue. Prior to the fight, Earl was cited to be a tough opponent for Khan as he was the number one British lightweight and a former world title challenger.
Khan was scheduled to fight Martin Kristjansen on 2nd February 2008, but illness forced Kristjansen to withdraw. As a result, Amir Khan had to fight against Australian boxer Gary St. Clair for the Commonwealth lightweight title at the ExCel Arena in London. Eventually, Khan beat Clair via a unanimous 120–108 scoring from all three ringside judges. This was his first fight to last all 12 rounds
On 5 April 2008, Khan, finally, contested against the Dane. Khan beat Kristjansen in the seventh round of a WBO world lightweight title eliminator.
He was ranked second after the victory, behind only Joel Casamayor.
Surprisingly, after the fight, Khan split from his trainer Oliver Harrison, who had trained him for all of his previous 17 professional contests. In the meanwhile, Dean Powell, who has trained former world champions Duke McKenzie and Lloyd Honeyghan, worked with Khan until a decision on a permanent trainer was made. Khan had a training session in Las Vegas with Roger Mayweather, trainer and uncle of Floyd Mayweather, Jr. in the same month.
To date, Amir Khan has proved that British Pakistani’s have what it takes to reach the heights of sports brilliance in England. Due to such performances, the entire Pakistani community in England have taken a sigh of relief that their representatives are bringing a good name to the British community.
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