Kell Brook doesn’t just want to punctuate his longstanding rivalry with Amir Khan by knocking out his fellow 35-year-old former champion on Saturday night.
Brook would love to record a highlight-reel knockout, something so vicious that British boxing fans will never forget it. Canelo Alvarez’s devastating knockout of Khan comes to Brook’s mind whenever he envisions how their 12-round, 149-pound bout will end at AO Arena in Manchester, England.
“I want a sensational knockout,” Brook told BoxingScene.com. “I would love a Canelo knockout, you know, what Canelo gave him. You know, you don’t get paid for overtime in this game and I’m looking, obviously, to hurt him and to end the show.”
Khan officially moved up from the welterweight division to middleweight for a 12-round fight contracted at a 155-pound limit versus Alvarez in May 2016.
It was an ambitious jump up in weight for the two-division champion, but Khan held his own through five rounds against Alvarez, then the WBC world middleweight champion. The 2004 Olympic silver medalist was ahead on one scorecard, 48-47, but behind on two cards, 49-46 and 48-47, when Alvarez landed a concussive right hand that knocked Khan unconscious during the sixth round of an HBO Pay-Per-View main event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Bolton’s Khan was 29 when he challenged Alvarez, but Brook has prepared for that version of Khan nearly six years later.
“I’ve trained for the best Amir Khan,” Brook said. “And I’ve also trained so that I expect whatever comes. I’m gonna adapt if I need to adapt. I’ve gone over and over and over it in my mind how the fight will go. Sometimes, it doesn’t go how you think it’s gonna go, how you think it’s set up, how you think he’s gonna fight. But, you know, I’ve got every base covered. I’ve trained for a tough 12 rounds, so as long as I’m a hundred percent, I don’t care what he brings to the table because I’ve got an answer for that.”
Khan (34-5, 21 KOs) has fought just four times in the more than 5½ years since he battled Alvarez. He’ll end a 2½-year layoff when he boxes Brook, which will mark his first fight since Khan stopped Australia’s Billy Dib (47-6, 27 KOs, 2 NC) in the fourth round of their July 2019 bout at King Abdullah Sports City in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Sheffield’s Brook (37-3, 29 KOs) last competed in November 2020, when WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford (38-0, 29 KOs) beat him by fourth-round TKO at MGM Grand Conference Center in Las Vegas.
Brook-Khan will headline a Sky Sports Box Office pay-per-view show in the United Kingdom and Ireland (£19.95; 6 p.m. GMT). ESPN+ will stream Khan-Brook as the main event of a show that’ll start at 1 p.m. ET and 10 a.m. PT in the United States.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.