AMIR Khan will only have himself to blame if he falls short in his title defence against Paul McCloskey, according to his former conditioning coach Alex Ariza.
WBA light-welterweight champion Khan dismissed Ariza last year after a very public fall-out, taking on Michael Vale in his place.
The two men crossed paths once again in the Philippines, when Khan was working with Manny Pacquiao under the guidance of trainer Freddie Roach.
And Ariza, who remains Pacquiao?s conditioning coach, believes Khan will come to regret firing him.
?It?s just really hard to say what he?s thinking; what?s going on in his head. I don?t know,? Ariza said.
?It came as a shock to me how things happened but this is the business that we are in; not every match is going to be made in heaven.
?I think that the work I did for him speaks for itself as far as what I do, so I?m not losing any of my other guys over it.?
Khan has been working relentlessly ahead of his homecoming defence on Sky Box Office on April 16, as Vale pushes him as never before with a wide range of tortuous exercises.
It?s all part of a tough training programme that Vale believes will reap impressive dividends.
?What I do outside the ring has to support what he does in the ring, so whether it is power, strength, speed, agility, quickness, mobility, stability, endurance; we cover all those areas and try to, for the most part, improve those.?
Khan has found no shortage of southpaws to spar with him and believes the intensity and variety of the sessions will help him to iron out the weaknesses that Marcos Maidana almost successfully exploited when the two met last December.
?I?ve finished my hard couple of weeks now and I had to do it in the Philippines,? said Khan.
?Normally my camp is in LA but because of Manny we flew over there and now I am spending two weeks in England before the fight.
?Sparring is about learning. If you don?t do it in sparring, you are going to end up doing it in the fight.
?Now I am back home I?m glooking at a tape and if I think I am doing something wrong, I?m going to say ?wait a minute, I?m not going to do that again? whereas in a real fight it might be too late.
?So it?s good to do everything in sparring. Things you think might work for you and thinks that might not. But as long as you know and you?ve experienced it, when you go in the real fight you know what to do.
?A lot of people want to see me fight. It?s the first fight of the year on Sky Box Office and I?m going to start the year off with a bang.?
