The long-awaited fight between Amir Khan and Kell Brook is finally set to play out in the coming days after years of buildup.
Manchester will be the stage for the battle, which promises to settle the long-standing feud that goes back 17 years.
First encountering one another as teenagers, the bad blood between the two is personal — not just for them but for their families and trainers.
The rivalry was born out of the welterweight competition to go to the 2004 Athens Olympics, with the two fighters taking very different routes from that moment on.
One became the golden boy with every eye and camera in boxing trained on him. The other had to fight his way up the greasy pole to get to the top.
Amir Khan vs Kell Brook beef history
At an England Boxing training camp back in 2004 the two boys, both 17 at the time, were involved in a feisty sparring session that laid the foundations for almost two decades of bad blood to follow.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Kell Brook said: “We knew about each other,”
“He was winning everything, I was winning everything. I knew he was good and vice versa.”
“Amir was the year below me at school. He was boxing at the weight below me. So he wasn’t really in my sights. We had a different mentality back then.”
Both had promising futures, with Khan on his way to the Olympics in the near future where he would go on to win a silver medal, while Brook had his eyes on going pro.
The beef is wrapped up in resentment between each fighter about how the other rose to the top.
Speaking to Sky Dominic Ingle, Brook’s trainer, said: “They had their favourites. Amir was the one getting a push. When you go to spar their best kids and get the better of them, they don’t like it. A lot is invested into these kids. And the trainers think they are the best trainers.
“So imagine a kid from the Ingle gym comes and stands their best kid on his head. They question their own boxers, but also question themselves.”
However, Khan appears to remember the situation differently. He said: “I was the better fighter at the time. I was levels above him. Kell just can’t let it go. He remembers, and it must tarnish him.”
In 2012, the two got into an intense debate during an encounter on Sky Sports. At the time Khan said: “We had great sparring sessions – you know what happened Kell.
“I used to box Kell all around the ring. I was training for the Olympic games at the time and Kell was a junior and I used to school Kell in the ring.’
“I’ve never been schooled ever,’ Kell responded.
Amir continued:”Kell used to wear head guards and body protectors, and small gloves. I used to wear the big gloves so I didn’t hurt him and no head guard so that way he had a chance. He was all padded-up from head to toe, just so he doesn’t get beat. And I’d still get them shots in.
Khan’s trainer, Terry Edwards, also disagrees with Ingle. Discussing Brook’s chances of making it into the Olympics team with Sky he said: “No. Not while I was there. He wasn’t even in the team.
“For the Athens Olympics, he wasn’t even mentioned as far as I know, and I was the head coach.
“I cannot recall Brook coming in.”
Brook believes that they had different approaches to how they wanted to get to the top. Khan believes Brook’s decision was made for him when he wasn’t selected to go to the Olympics.
Brook said: “Amir has always had things his own way. He was top of the bill even on his debut.
“I came up the hard way, in the first fight of the night, taking float fights, fights after the main event when everybody has gone home.
“I had to become mandatory. I got injuries. I have come through hell.”
Khan, who went on to be a world champion between 2009 and 2012, meanwhile rode the wave of being a national icon after his Olympic heroics.
But Khan disagrees that his route was the easy one. He said: “I had more pressure on me,”
“Kell had it easy because there was no pressure when he was building his career with easy fights. I was always watched. I had to move through the ranks quickly.”
The two fighters have even been in the same stable, with both of them spending time with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom.
Efforts to get the pair in the ring in the past have fallen through. In 2015, Kell’s team walked away from the negotiating table after they were put off by the percentage of the purse Khan demanded.
Hearn did his best to arrange another fight between the two in 2018 and it wasn’t until 2012 when Ben Shalom of BOXXER resuscitated the grudge match.
When is Amir Khan Vs Kell Brook fight? The two fighters will finally settle their score on February 19 2022. Neither had to take the fight, but the battle will settle years of clashing.
It is possible this will be the final fight for both of them, meaning one person’s career could end with vindication, the other’s with humiliation.
