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You are: Home > Cover story > Amir Khan

Let there be lights

Two weeks after his much-publicised win against Dmitry Salita, 23-year-old boxing sensation Amir Khan opens up about his ordinary life in Bolton and his extraordinary quest to see his name up in lights in Las Vegas. Interview by Evie Lucas. Photos by Roland Lane.

It is a freezing morning in December, shortly after Amir Khan demolished Dmitry Salita in just 76 seconds to retain his WBA World Light-Welterweight Champion title. I am driving to his gym in Bolton to meet the boxing champ for an interview and photo shoot, when my sat nav dies on me in a neighbourhood where I suspect ice gritters fear to tread. I stop in the middle of an iced, deserted street. As I open a map and decide it is time to learn how to read it, a group of three hoodies slide past my car and then pause for a moment before turning back. One of them knocks on my window. I buzz it down against my better judgement.

"Where are you going?" asks a teenage boy's voice.

"Gloves." I get a blank look so I add, "Amir Khan's gym."

A flash of recognition, a friendly smile and a set of detailed instructions, and I'm off on my way, my faith in humanity restored.

When I arrive, Khan is finishing a radio interview in a room somewhere and our photographer is frantically setting up in the gym. A few minutes later a door opens and the man nicknamed King Khan appears, holding his hand out for a firm handshake. Of course I recognise him - you would have to, unless you've been in a coma for the last couple of years. But as he smiles, he looks like the younger, smaller, gentler twin of the fighting machine seen on TV.

Khan is well aware of the odd first impression he makes. "When people see me, they don't think I'm a boxer," he says, laughing heartily. "They think I'm a normal person, so they have to ask me, sometimes twice, 'Are you Amir Khan, really?' Because they think I look so big on TV. The joke I have for them is, 'you must have a big television at home, that's why'."

As we sit down for the interview in a conference room upstairs, his manner is relaxed and his confidence stretches far beyond his years. That's probably because since he came under the spotlight for winning a silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics at the age of 17, he has had a very eventful life. I ask him to recall his best fighting moment so far.

"I've probably got two best moments of fighting," he answers. "The first one was when I was in the Olympic Games; when I won the silver medal. The whole competition was a great experience for me. I know it was only four rounds of two minutes each, but I made the most of it. That was the start of my boxing career.

"And the second was when I was in the world title fight. I think that was a great fight for me. There was a lot of pressure on me because I thought, this can be my only chance; if I lose this fight, I might never, ever get a chance for a world title again. I needed to win that fight and I knew that winning the world title was going to take me on to a different level, and that's what it did - it's given me so much confidence in and outside the boxing ring."

"Enough confidence to hand Salita the first loss of his professional career in, what was it, 75 seconds?" I ask.

"76 seconds," he corrects me. "We didn't choose this fight; it was mandatory. So we took it and I was very, very surprised myself to finish the fight within the first round."

Not all clashes have been this easy for Khan. Asked to recount the most frightening experience he has had in the ring so far, he goes back to September 2008, when he was knocked out by Breidis Prescott in 54 seconds at the M.E.N Arena. This was Khan's 18th professional fight and the first time he was knocked out. "We took the fight lightly and we didn't really know much about the opponent, so the tactics and the game plan for the fight were wrong. That was quite hard for me to get over because it was my first defeat and that hurt me, but now I'm over it and it's only made me a better fighter."

Following his defeat to Prescott, Khan's trainer, Jorge Rubio, was replaced with Freddie Roach - one of the most well-known boxing trainers in the world. After a few months of training with Roach in the United States, the boxer made his comeback in December 2008 with a win against Oisin Fagan and has been undefeated since. "Yeah man, my boxing career is going really well and I think now more people are appreciating it and I'm getting more supporters," he says. "I've just turned 23 and I've got a great career ahead of me."

Ah, the arrogance of youth. Still, Khan has earned the right, more than any other 23-year-old I know, to be pleased with himself, and he is just getting started. "My dream fight would be against someone like Floyd Mayweather, who is probably pound for pound one of the greatest fighters out there," he says. "And I'd like to have that fight somewhere like MGM Grand in Las Vegas."

Khan has often expressed the wish to fight in America, which he says is every boxer's dream. "All the best and biggest fights in the world are held there. Having your picture and name lit up high up in the sky in a place like Vegas... that's when you know you've done well in the sport."

"So it's all about the lights..." I comment, shaking my head in mock-disapproval. He laughs. "It's about the lights, man; it's about walking down the Strip and seeing your picture on the billboards and your name in lights."

I take a closer look at him. He is dressed in a plain white shirt, blue jeans and trainers - which is as dressy as he gets, according to his press rep. "He's a jeans and T-shirt kind of guy," he had warned. In fact, we had to ask him to not turn up in a Reebok T-shirt for our photo shoot, and he was kind enough to oblige. He has absolutely no bling on him, yet his self-confidence is truly dazzling. And this is perhaps the most striking difference between him and most of the other young men his age in this not-so-glamorous corner of Greater Manchester.

"Are you starting to feel like a big fish in a small pond in Bolton?" I ask.

"Not really - I love Bolton and I'm still learning," he claims. "I see myself as a normal person; I'm a small fish in a big pond even in Bolton. But training in America has been a great eye opener for me and fighting over there is a different ball game. People want to see me fight over there and I think it's time now, in 2010, I showed them who Amir Khan is."

Speculation has been rife about a possible relocation to America, but Khan denies any such plans. "I'd never like to move, no. I love England and I love the people here, so I don't think I'll ever move."

Yet he trains in LA, so he spends a lot of time away from home. Asked what he misses most about his hometown when he is away, he doesn't need to think much about the answer. "You miss your family, don't you," he says. "And your mum's cooking. You miss being around the faces that you know, like your friends. That's what I miss.

"When you go to a new place, you don't know the area and sometimes you do get bored because you don't know what to do. But I think that, in a way, is a good thing because you end up having more rest and training harder; you're totally focused on one thing, which is boxing, whereas here there are so many distractions that could lead me away from training. You get pulled left, right and centre to do this and that..."

"To do interviews, for example..." I cut in.

"Interviews and everything," he agrees, laughing. "But yeah, it's part of the job; you have to do it, you can't say no. And that's the reason I chose to go to America - to be more focused."

Outside the ring, Khan is very socially conscious - Gloves Gym being one of the ways in which he gives back to his local community. He has reportedly invested #700,000 of his own money into this gym, which serves as his training base before a fight in the UK but also as a boxing gym for local youngsters. And he says it was worth every penny. "We've got a gym which gets 400 kids coming in and out every week, and it costs next to nothing, I think they pay #1, to come in and learn how to box from trainers and use all the equipment in the gym.

"When I was a kid, we didn't have these facilities. This was quite a deprived area, where kids hung around in the street corners, throwing stones and always getting into trouble with the police. I wanted to stop that; I wanted to give a chance to young people who want to do something in life.

"Now kids come into the gym, listen to the coach and learn a bit of discipline more than anything. It keeps them off the streets and out of trouble."

Amir Khan is a role model around here. You would struggle to find a young man who doesn't know his name and who doesn't aspire to be as successful and famous as him - especially among the British Pakistani community. But at a time when race tensions run high in Britain, it is not easy for a Muslim boxer, no matter how proudly he wears the Union Jack, to get mainstream support. Khan is aware that he still has a bit of way to go before everyone gets behind him, but he doesn't sound bitter, and he is too smart to try too hard to please everyone.

"I'm just being myself and I've not changed as a person since people first saw me at the 2004 Olympic Games," he says. "Everything I do is normal. I hang out with the same friends, where we've always hung out. We still go to the park sometimes and have a kickabout... Not that I can play football, but I try to. I still live with my family and I spend a lot of time with them. I've got a little niece I always mess about with and take her out. Sometimes I do the school runs or my mum might send me shopping..."

The mental image of King Khan doing domestic chores is a bit funny. I laugh and he joins me. "I live a normal life man," he insists. "Some people change when they get a bit of fame. Me, I'll never change."

Having met Khan's dad, a quiet man with kind eyes, it is easy to see what keeps the young boxer grounded. "My family are cool, chilled out," he confirms. "They trust me and they mean a lot to me, so I'm not going to do anything stupid ... I think because I have a great family, that's one of the reasons why I'm level-headed and a very normal person."

So instead of being snapped falling out of nightclubs, getting into fights or trying to dodge the paparazzi, Khan is going about his life like fame never happened. "Sometimes I might go to Nando's or a takeaway and as soon as I walk in you can hear people whispering my name. But I don't think I've ever had a person come up to me and say anything bad to me, like 'I want to fight you' or 'beat you up' or whatever. They've always been nice to me - they take a picture of me, shake my hand, say 'well done' - and that makes me happy. I don't look down on anyone. My religion helps me respect people from all backgrounds, and I think that's one of the reasons why I don't get abuse."

Khan is keeping it real with the media, too - he is generous with his time, courteous and refreshingly candid. "I'm not scared of the media; I'm not doing anything wrong. So if they want to take a picture of me or if they want to ask me a question, I'm gonna give that picture to them, I'm gonna answer that question. And I think by being yourself you are left alone by everyone, whereas when you try to hide things and stay away from the media, that's when they attack you."

With the interview finished, we head back into the gym for the photo shoot. Khan looks strong, determined, focused - a proper champ. He is completely at ease in front of the camera and a pleasure to work with, following instructions and nailing each pose. He goofs around with us for a while and then he is off to his next interview. "See you soon," he says cheerfully as he walks up the stairs and disappears behind the door.

Outside the gym, as I walk to my car, I take a long look around. Vegas feels a universe away from here, but Khan is not going to be easy to derail.

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