AMIR KHAN PUTS KELL BROOK ON BLAST

Published

10 years ago

April 5, 2015

Everyone in boxing seems to have an opinion about Amir Khan. By now, you have surely heard about Khan’s quest to dethrone the best in the sport and his rise to stardom, and also the takedowns, from those who deride his game and nitpick his choice of moves.

The Bolton native says nothing was handed to him. And he listens to boxing fans more than one would expect.

Kell Brook is itching to fight Khan. The Bolton native didn’t hold any punches when discussing a potential fight against the undefeated Brook. “There are levels to boxing,” he told me. “I think Kell Brook needs to understand that he is at a level below me.“

I spoke with Khan on Saturday afternoon to discuss the possibilities of fighting Brook, the winner of Mayweather/Pacquiao, and his potential next opponent, Chris Algieri. On Thursday, Khan made an announcement on his wife’s YouTube account stating he is fighting Algieri on May 30th. Two days later, Khan retracted his statement. Khan says, “The Algieri fight is not 100% confirmed.”

Khan spoke to me about the reactionary potential opponents; fight fans, and media surrounding his career. Khan also talked at length about boxing politics, how undeserving opponents, especially Brook, get thrown into the mix when they have not earned the opportunity.

“All I want is Kell to prove himself fighting A-list fighters, like I have done. Right now, he is just riding on my back. He is riding my name. I know it’s business but please stop fooling people and making me look small. Eddie Hearn and Kell Brook make me look like a liar.”

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In an in-depth interview about his history in the sport, and what the future holds, Khan attempts to explain better his career as a whole.

Ray Markarian: A few days ago, you made an announcement on YouTube saying that you are fighting Chris Algieri on May 30th. But you just told me the Algieri fight is not confirmed. What is going on with the Algieri fight?

Amir Khan: I made the video on YouTube because we thought the fight with Chris Algieri was a done deal. But I have been speaking with my team and there are some more options on the table. We are waiting things out. I hope to get my fight finalized this week.

RM:So, the fight with Algieri hasn’t been confirmed?

AK: No. Nothing is 100% confirmed yet. We could make an announcement in another couple of days. We don’t know if it’s Algieri just yet. My opponent on May 30th has not been confirmed. Nothing has been agreed upon. There are a lot of names out there. We just have to make the right decision.

RM:What about Adrien Broner? You think Broner wants the fight? He was calling you out.

AK: No. I don’t think he wants it. I think he hyped it up on social media. I told him that I am a 147-pound fighter. He was very respectful and said he wants to meet at 144 or 145. Why would I go to meet him at 144 or 145? If he wants to fight me then he should come meet me at my weight. I am getting messages that he really doesn’t want the fight. He is talking big on the social media. But when it comes down to taking the fight on May 30th, or even May 23rd, we hear nothing. He doesn’t want anything.

RM: What about Juan Manuel Marquez?

AK: Nothing. We haven’t heard much from them.

RM: What about the fight with Miguel Cotto? I know there were rumors about you fighting Cotto.

AK: Here’s one thing I want to the public to understand. I am the one that is challenging everyone. It’s me calling out these big names. The fight with Miguel Cotto would be great for me. But I heard he is working a deal to fight Bundrage. I think he has a date set in June. I want to fight at the end of May. And I can’t do June because of Ramadan.

RM: Right.

AK: Obviously I take Ramadan very seriously. I don’t want to rush into it. That’s why I want to fight at the end of May. I want to start preparing for Ramadan in June. Even though it doesn’t start until like the 17th, it’s important, and I want to start for preparing for it. So basically I am the one that wants to fight all the big names but people are trying to bring me down saying that I want to fight an easy option in Algieri. But like I said, the main reason we are considering Algieri is that the fight is going to be on primetime TV in the US. And it makes a lot of money for me. So, why not take the fight?

RM: OK. But, why wouldn’t you make a lot of money fighting Kell Brook?

AK: Kell Brook?

RM: Yeah. I think that’s the main question.

AK:Well, it’s all timing. I want to fight in America. And I want to fight before June. Brook is looking at mid June or the end of June. Here’s the thing with Kell Brook… I have always said it from day one; I have had all the toughest fights. I have gone through the gauntlet. I earned my stripes and I did it the hard way, fighting the likes of Maidana, Judah, Garcia, Peterson, Malignaggi, and Alexander. I am fighting all the top guys. I have proven myself. Brook can’t go into a fight with Amir Khan after beating Jo Jo Dan. All due respect to Dan. I respect every fighter, but Dan is a nobody. You think I am going to say, “Oh yeah, fight me next.” It doesn’t make sense for him (Brook) to fight me after the Jo Jo Dan fight. Why doesn’t he prove himself? I mean, look, he is fighting all of these C-Class opponents. Now he really thinks he has a chance to fight me? Why should I give him the opportunity to fight me when he has not taken a hard fight?

RM: Brook hasn’t paid his dues?

AK: Exactly. Don’t get me wrong, because there is going to be a lot of money on the table regardless. There will be a lot of money on the table fighting Kell Brook. But there will be a lot of money fighting Algieri as well. The reason I respect Algieri is because has faced some tough guys, like Provodnikov and Manny Pacquiao. I really believe the fight with Algieri makes more sense, in a way. Algieri has been in with the top guys. What if he beat Pacquiao? I mean, he lost the fight, but if he won then he probably wouldn’t even fight me. It’s not my job to defend Chris Algieri. But my opponent on May 30th hasn’t been confirmed. I am just saying that if it is Algieri, then here are the reasons why we would fight him.

RM:Algieri went 12 rounds with Pacquiao. That’s true. You have to respect him for that.

AK: Exactly. His last three fights were against some top guys, Provodnikov, Pacquiao, and Emmanuel Taylor. You can’t really disrespect him. I will tell you one thing, He is better than Jo Jo Dan. And I am hearing another thing about Eddie Hearn. I heard Hearn is looking at Brandon Rios or a guy named Antonin Decarie for Kell Brook’s next opponent. But Rios is naturally a 140-pound fighter and Decarie is another unknown name. It seems to me that Kell Brook’s team is picking the easy option. I think they are scared to lose to an A-Class opponent and lose the opportunity to fight Amir Khan. The only reason he wants to fight me is for the big payday. Otherwise, he would probably face some decent opponents. He is scared of losing the title. That’s all it is.

RM:Does the public criticism get under your skin?

AK: No Ray, it doesn’t bother me. I want to speak to you to get the message out to the general public. Sometimes the general public doesn’t really understand the boxing business. I do not disrespect any fighter. We work in a very tough profession. I think that people do not see how hard our job really is.

RM: The business outweighs the sport.

AK: It is a business. Eddie and Kell are fooling the fans and the media. Look at my last 10 opponents and look at Kell’s. Regardless if I won or lost. They say I am afraid. They put my name down of being afraid. All I want is Kell to prove himself fighting A-list fighters, like I have done. Right now, he is just riding on my back. He is riding my name. I know it’s business but please stop fooling people and making me look small. Eddie Hearn and Kell Brook make me look like a liar. If Kell really wants to fight me then he should fight a few A-list opponents and build his name. Instead of looking at the small picture look at the bigger picture. We can make the Amir Khan/Kell Brook fight like Mayweather/Pacquiao, if we do it smartly. But that’s only if Kell fights the likes of Maidana, Thurman, or Marquez. He has to prove himself against top guys, you know?

RM:You said that you would fight Kell Brook in a “winner take all of the purse” type of fight. You would really do that?

AK: Yes of course. That’s how confident I am. And I want to prove to him that at the end of the day, boxing is not about the money to me. I am blessed to have made a lot of money in this sport. I have been very lucky to surround myself with great people. I have been lucky in life. But boxing is not all about the money to me. But I know for him, (Kell Brook) it is all about the money.

RM:OK.

AK: And when I said, “winner takes all” I didn’t say it was going to be my next fight. It could be the end of the year or early next year. So, when and if I ever fight Brook that’s what I want to do. That’s how confident I am that I will beat him.

RM:I know you continue to say that Brook hasn’t really fought anyone but he beat Shawn Porter. Porter was an undefeated champion, you know?

AK: Yeah. He beat Shawn Porter. But it was a 50/50 fight. That was the only top guy he fought and it could have gone either way. That was a very close fight. A lot of people thought Shawn won. A lot of people thought Brook won. So, if that is the only A-Class opponent he fought and it wasn’t a clear victory, then I think he still needs more experience.

RM: So, you’re saying that Brook fought one “name” fighter, and won a close fight, but hasn’t truly proved himself?

AK: Exactly. Obviously, Kell has beaten one big fighter. But you can’t just beat one decent name and say you want to fight the world. You know what I mean?

RM: I hear you.

AK: You really think Brook has a chance with Manny Pacquiao or Mayweather? They don’t even know who Kell Brook is. You know what I mean?

RM: So, you paid your dues and Brook hasn’t paid his dues? That’s basically what you’re saying?

AK: He hasn’t earned it. That’s what the general public needs to understand. Kell Brook hasn’t done it the hard way. He has done it the easy way. But he is trying to win over the fans by putting me down. He puts me down and says he wants to fight me but we all know, realistically, he wants to fight me because he knows he will make more money. He just doesn’t want to risk losing to an A-Class opponent. If Kell Brook fought me it will be a life changing experience for him.

RM:You mean financially?

AK: Yeah. A fight between Amir Khan and Kell Brook will change his life. So, should I give him that opportunity? I don’t know.

RM: The cards are in your hands, huh?

AK: The cards are in my hands. Exactly. But you cannot disrespect who I fight and what I have done in my career. I have done more than what Kell Brook has done. Everyone knows I call out the big names but I don’t do it disrespectfully. I pay my respects to proven warriors. Kell Brook hasn’t done half of what I have done.

RM:You are looking out for yourself.

AK: Exactly.

RM: So, why is Amir Khan doing what is best for him and not worried about what Kell Brook wants?

AK: Well, here’s the reason. Let’s be real. I have faced everyone that they have asked me to fight, from my mandatory to the top guys; I didn’t have to take these fights against the big names. But I did. That’s the type of fighter that I am. But you can’t disrespect me because I might fight somebody else. Algieri is a tough fighter. No fight is easy. Like I said, Algieri is better fighter than Jo Jo Dan. If it’s ok for Kell Brook to fight Jo Jo Dan, and his next fight might be against some guy named Decarie, why can’t I fight Algieri? Why are they disrespecting me?

RM: If Chris Algieri fights Kell Brook, who wins?

AK: It’s a toss up. That’s a close fight. At the end of the day, Algieri is a good fighter. He went the distance with Pacquiao and showed a lot of heart in that fight.

RM: OK. So, in your opinion, what will satisfy the public?

AK: Man, I am just hearing so many things. Eddie Hearn said that I turned down a fight with Tim Bradley, the title eliminator. I would never turn down that fight. That’s crazy. That fight has never been offered to me.

RM: Wow.

AK: And if the Bradley fight was offered to me, I would take that fight in a heartbeat. Everyone knows I have offered to fight Bradley a long time ago. Bradley said he doesn’t want to fight. So, why would Eddie Hearn go out there and say I refused the fight against Bradley? Hearn doesn’t know anything. That (Bradley) fight hasn’t been brought to my attention.

RM: We are talking about Amir Khan fighting Hall of Fame fighters. You are one fight away from fighting Hall of Fame fighters.

AK: Well, my name is getting mentioned to fighting the winner of Mayweather/Pacquiao. But I have Kell Brook calling me out. There are levels to boxing. I think Kell Brook needs to understand that he is at a level below me.

You can follow Ray on Twitter @raymarkarian or email him at raymond.markarian@yahoo.com

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Raymond Markarian

Avila Perspective, Chap. 322: Super Welter Week in SoCal

Published

12 hours ago

April 18, 2025

David A. Avila

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Two below-the-radar super welterweight stars show off their skills this weekend from different parts of Southern California.

One in particular, Charles Conwell, co-headlines a show in Oceanside against a hard-hitting Mexican while another super welter star Sadriddin Akhmedov faces another Mexican hitter in Commerce.

Take your pick.

The super welterweight division is loaded with talent at the moment. If Terence Crawford remained in the division he would be at the top of the class, but he is moving up several weight divisions.

Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) faces Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 KOs) a tall knockout puncher from Los Mochis at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, Calif. on Saturday April 19. DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card that also features undisputed flyweight champion Gabriela Fundora. We’ll get to her later.

Conwell might be the best super welterweight out there aside from the big dogs like Vergil Ortiz, Serhii Bohachuk and Sebastian Fundora.

If you are not familiar with Conwell he comes from Cleveland, Ohio and is one of those fighters that other fighters know about. He is good.

He has the James “Lights Out” Toney kind of in-your-face-style where he anchors down and slowly deciphers the opponent’s tools and then takes them away piece by piece. Usually it’s systematic destruction. The kind you see when a skyscraper goes down floor by floor until it’s smoking rubble.

During the Covid days Conwell fought two highly touted undefeated super welters in Wendy Toussaint and Madiyar Ashkeyev. He stopped them both and suddenly was the boogie man of the super welterweight division.

Conwell will be facing Mexico’s taller Garcia who likes to trade blows as most Mexican fighters prefer, especially those from Sinaloa. These guys will be firing H bombs early.

Fundora

Co-headlining the Golden Boy card is Gabriela Fundora (15-0, 7 KOs) the undisputed flyweight champion of the world. She has all the belts and Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1, 3 KOs) wants them.

Gabriela Fundora is the sister of Sebastian Fundora who holds the men’s WBC and WBO super welterweight world titles. Both are tall southpaws with power in each hand to protect the belts they accumulated.

Six months ago, Fundora met Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz in Las Vegas to determine the undisputed flyweight champion. The much shorter Alaniz tried valiantly to scrap with Fundora and ran into a couple of rocket left hands.

Mexico’s Badillo is an undefeated flyweight from Mexico City who has battled against fellow Mexicans for years. She has fought one world champion in Asley Gonzalez the current super flyweight world titlist. They met years ago with Badillo coming out on top.

Does Badillo have the skill to deal with the taller and hard-hitting Fundora?

When a fighter has a six-inch height advantage like Fundora, it is almost impossible to out-maneuver especially in two-minute rounds. Ask Alaniz who was nearly decapitated when she tried.

This will be Badillo’s first pro fight outside of Mexico.

Commerce Casino

Kazakhstan’s Sadriddin Akhmedov (15-0, 13 KOs) is another dangerous punching super welterweight headlining a 360 Promotions card against Mexico’s Elias Espadas (23-6, 16 KOs) on Saturday at the Commerce Casino.

UFC Fight Pass will stream the 360 Promotions card of about eight bouts.

Akhmedov is another Kazakh puncher similar to the great Gennady “GGG” Golovkin who terrorized the middleweight division for a decade. He doesn’t have the same polish or dexterity but doesn’t lack pure punching power.

It’s another test for the super welterweight who is looking to move up the ladder in the very crowded 154-pound weight division. 360 Promotions already has a top contender in Ukraine’s Serhii Bohachuk who nearly defeated Vergil Ortiz a year ago.

Could Bohachuk and Akhmedov fight each other if nothing else materializes?

That’s a question for another day.

Fights to Watch

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Charles Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) vs. Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 KOs); Gabriela Fundora (15-0) vs Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1).

Sat. UFC Fight Pass 6 p.m. Sadriddin Akhmedov (15-0) vs Elias Espadas (23-6).

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TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts

Published

3 days ago

April 16, 2025

TSS Press

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The Boxing Writers Association of America has announced the winners of its annual Bernie Awards competition. The awards, named in honor of former five-time BWAA president and frequent TSS contributor Bernard Fernandez, recognize outstanding writing in six categories as represented by stories published the previous year.

Over the years, this venerable website has produced a host of Bernie Award winners. In 2024, Thomas Hauser kept the tradition alive. A story by Hauser that appeared in these pages finished first in the category “Boxing News Story.” Titled “Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission,” the story was published on June 23. You can read it HERE.

Hauser also finished first in the category of “Investigative Reporting” for “The Death of Ardi Ndembo,” a story that ran in the (London) Guardian. (Note: Hauser has owned this category. This is his 11^th first place finish for “Investigative Reporting”.)

Thomas Hauser, who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 2019, was honored at last year’s BWAA awards dinner with the A.J. Leibling Award for Outstanding Boxing Writing. The list of previous winners includes such noted authors as W.C. Heinz, Budd Schulberg, Pete Hamill, and George Plimpton, to name just a few.

The Leibling Award is now issued intermittently. The most recent honorees prior to Hauser were Joyce Carol Oates (2015) and Randy Roberts (2019).

Roberts, a Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University, was tabbed to write the Hauser/Leibling Award story for the glossy magazine for BWAA members published in conjunction with the organization’s annual banquet. Regarding Hauser’s most well-known book, his Muhammad Ali biography, Roberts wrote, “It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the book to our understanding of Ali and his times.” An earlier book by Hauser, “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing,” garnered this accolade: “Anyone who wants to understand boxing today should begin by reading ‘The Black Lights’.”

A panel of six judges determined the Bernie Award winners for stories published in 2024. The stories they evaluated were stripped of their bylines and other identifying marks including the publication or website for which the story was written.

Other winners:

Boxing Event Coverage: Tris Dixon

Boxing Column: Kieran Mulvaney

Boxing Feature (Over 1,500 Words): Lance Pugmire

Boxing Feature (Under 1,500 Words): Chris Mannix

The Dixon, Mulvaney, and Pugmire stories appeared in Boxing Scene; the Mannix story in Sports Illustrated.

The Bernie Award recipients will be honored at the forthcoming BWAA dinner on April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in the heart of Times Square. (For more information, visit the BWAA website). Two days after the dinner, an historic boxing tripleheader will be held in Times Square, the logistics of which should be quite interesting. Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Teofimo Lopez share top billing.

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Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday

Published

4 days ago

April 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Mekhrubon-Sanginov-whose-Heroism-Nearly-Proved-Fatal-Returns-on-Saturday

To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.

He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.

Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.

“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.

“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)

Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.

During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”

He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.

He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sanginov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.

On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.

Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.

If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.

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