On Saturday 19th February, two of Britain’s best boxers of recent times will finally put many years of debate to the test.
Amir Khan will face Kell Brook in a welterweight bout that will finally decide who comes out on top between two of the country’s most famous boxing sons.
The fight, which will be shown live on Sky Box Office, has been many years in the making, with the two rivals being active at the same time, but never competing against each other.
Each has accused the other of dodging a fight between the pair over the years and on Saturday 19th, we will get to see which of these two veterans, now in the final stages of their careers, will come out on top.
It is the latest of a long-lie of top boxing weekends for UK fight fans over the last few years.
Bet365 Sport is offering odds on the contest already and we will look at those odds later on in the article, but first we shall take a look at the City of Sheffield and it’s long-standing history of producing some of the best boxing talent Britain and the World has seen.
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Sheffield’s Fine Boxing History
Sheffield has long been a hot bed of British
boxing. Home to a number of world-renown gyms, including the Ingle Gym, which is based in Wincobank.
Kell Brook is not the only boxer to call the Steel City home. It has been the birthplace of six World Champions in total, Paul Jones, Clinton Woods, Johnny Nelson, Prince Naseem Hamed, Kell Brook and most recently, Kid Galahad.
The city was also home to a number of other talented fighters who fell just short on the world stage, such as Herol “Bomber” Graham and Junior Witter.
The city, chiefly through the Ingle Gym, has become one of the hotbeds of boxing in the UK and every year a new clutch of youngsters start in the amateur ranks hoping to become one of the city’s next big legends.
With Amir Khan hailing from the Lancashire town of Bolton, which is not too far away from Sheffield, this Lancashire v Yorkshire grudge match between the two promises to be one of the biggest domestic fights of the last few years.
Let’s now take a look at the careers of both boxers so far, starting with Amir Khan.
Amir Khan Career
Amir Khan first came to the nation’s attention
at the 2004 Olympic Games where he earned a silver medal in the lightweight division at the tender age of just 17.
After turning professional, Khan started his career with 18 wins in a row, defeating Willie Limond in his 13th fight to claim the Commonwealth Lightweight title, which he defended successfully three times before he defeated Dane Martin Kristjansen to land the WBO Inter-Continental Lightweight title in his hometown.
Another successful defence of his Commonwealth Lightweight title followed against Michael Gomez of Ireland before Khan’s first defeat, a brutal and shocking first round knockout loss to Breidis Prescott at the MEN Arena.
Khan defeated Oisin Fagan in his 20th fight before winning on a technical decision against the highly regarded Marco Antonio Barrera, who had beaten Prince Naseem Hamed earlier in his career.
That set Khan up for a first World Title shot where he defeated Ukraine’s Andreas Kotelnik to claim the WBA Lightweight title.
Khan defended the title five times successfully, beating Dmitry Salita, Paulie Malignaggi, Marcos Maidana, Paul McCloskey and Zab Judah (winning the IBF World title) from 2009 to 2011 before he lost both titles to Lamont Peterson in his 28th fight.
Since then Khan has lost three times (to Danny Garcia, Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford) as well as winning eight more bouts to have a career record of 34 wins, 5 defeats, 21 of those wins coming via knockout.
Kell Brook Career
Kell Brook, or Special K as he is known, has
fought at middleweight, light-middleweight and welterweight in his career and he is a product of the aforementioned Ingle Gym in Wincobank.
Brook claimed his first title in his 17th fight when he defeated Barrie Joes in June 2008 to win the vacant British Welterweight title, enhancing his record to 17-0.
Three successful defences of that title followed before he then took on Polish boxer Krzysztof Bienias in Liverpool, where he won the WBO Inter-Continental welterweight title.
Brook stepped up into the World Title equation after his win over Luis Galarza in Atlantic City in December 2011 and two hard wins over Matthew Hatton and Carson Jones, the latter a narrow majority decision, saw him hang on to his titles and claim the IBF International Welterweight title.
In between a second win over Carson Jones, this time achieved with a TKO in round 8, he beat Hector Saldivia and after two more wins, he finally fought for the IBF welterweight world title against Shawn Porter in California, earning a majority decision win to claim a world title belt.
Three successful defences of that title followed before Brook made the decision to move up to middleweight to defend his 36-0 record against Gennady Golovkin, but Golovkin was too strong and won by TKO in the fifth.
Brook then lost his IBF Welterweight title when losing to Errol Spence Jr and after bouncing back with three wins in his next three fights, he then lost his last fight to Terence Crawford by a TKO in the fourth round.
It has been 18 months since Brook last fought and injuries to his eye sockets mean that this fight with Khan is likely to be one of his last, if not his final one.
Brook has a 39-3 record in his career, winning 27 of his bouts by knockout.
What Are The Latest Odds?
At the time of writing Kell Brook is the 8/15 favourite to win the bout with bet365 Sport, while Amir Khan is the 11/8 underdog in the fight.
Kell Brook winning by KO or TKO or Disqualification seems to be the best backed Fight Outcome bet with Brook 5/4 to win by any of these methods, while Brook to win on points via a decision is 7/2.
Khan is 7/2 to win by a KO, TKO or DQ, and 4/1 to win on points. The draw is a 16/1 shot.
With two of Britain’s greatest boxers of the generation coming head to head for the first time after many years of throwing barbs, it should be an exciting night of boxing action at the MEN Arena.
