Amir Khan, stretched out on a narrow table, yelps as a seriously intense man digs an elbow into his shoulder blade. The air turns an even darker shade of blue on a rainy evening in Bolton as Khan, naked but for a skimpy white towel covering his rear, swears in agony while his physiotherapist leans heavily on him.
"That hurts," Khan whimpers, his big eyes looking up pitifully as the pain intensifies. "It's just as well I'm not fighting this guy because he knows all my weak spots."
Khan's good humour is evident as he groans. Instead of facing his physiotherapist – an otherwise genial middle-aged man who goes about his work with fierce dedication – Khan defends his WBA light-welterweight title for the first time against the unbeaten Dmitriy Salita in Newcastle on Saturday. It will be a day short of 15 months since Khan was knocked out in 54 seconds by Breidis Prescott, an impassive Colombian who left him looking far more vulnerable than he does now as a revitalised world champion having his muscles loosened after sparring.
"I've done a hundred rounds for Salita," Khan says, "and it's important to have this kind of massage. When you drop weight the closer you come to the fight the more your muscles tighten up. This keeps me supple – even if it kills me."
Now, stripped and hurting, the 22-year-old reveals how affected his mother has been by that devastating defeat. After Khan was battered to the canvas by Prescott, his mother, Falak, tried to stop his younger brother, Haroon, from fighting again by hiding his boxing kit. Only the intervention of her husband, Shah, persuaded Falak to accept that her two sons would box on.
"My mum still doesn't like me fighting now," Khan says, propping his chin on his hands. "She says, 'Look, you've achieved what you set out to do. You're a world champion – so call it a day'. But this sport is too addictive. I know I have the talent and so I don't want to throw it away."
Khan has responded positively to his only loss and scored decisive wins in his three fights since then – including victory over the great but faded Mexican Marco Antonio Barrera and a comprehensive decision four months ago when he outclassed Andreas Kotelnik to become the WBA world champion. And yet Falak Khan has stayed away from the ring every time.
"She was there when I lost to Prescott," Khan says, "and afterwards she said, 'Look, I don't want to come to any more of your fights. She comes with me to the town but she stays in the hotel. The fights are getting tougher now, and bloodier, and I think her heart would've stopped if she had seen the Barrera fight [when the Mexican was slashed open by a clash of heads]."
His muscles are still being pounded but Khan's concentration is absolute as he considers all that his mother endures. "Whose mother wants to see her son fight?" he asks. "It's very hard for her – but boxing is in my blood."
The extent of that addiction was clear when, stricken by Prescott, Khan decided to leave Bolton for a lonely apartment and a stark gym in Los Angeles – so that he could be salvaged by the world's best trainer, Freddie Roach, and work alongside the formidable Manny Pacquiao. Within a few weeks of being knocked out he was pulling on borrowed headgear in Roach's Wild Card gym. Across the ring, prowling and grinning, Pacquiao waited for him.
"That first time against Manny I was nervous," Khan says, "because I was going in with the world's best fighter and didn't know what to expect. After Prescott my confidence had been knocked. So it was a big test but I did really well against Manny. The good thing about being nervous is that you perform better. I was on the edge and that's good."
Roach confirms that for four rounds his latest protege is a decent match for Pacquiao – who blasted through Ricky Hatton inside two rounds earlier this year. "I'm very experienced in four-round fights, because of my amateur career, and I've got a high work rate," Khan says. "But, yeah, Freddie's right. If it went longer then maybe I'd feel the pressure against Manny. The first time we sparred I did OK but I still had doubts in my head. I think it would be different if we sparred now.
"Freddie thought there was no point us sparring when Manny was preparing for Miguel Cotto [last month]. I've got a totally different style to Cotto and Manny's a southpaw where my guy, Salita, is orthodox. But if Manny fights Floyd Mayweather I could give him good sparring – because of my handspeed and lateral movement."
His potential role in boxing's most anticipated fight, between Pacquiao and Mayweather, delights Khan. "I was at Manny's fight against Cotto and he was amazing. Cotto's lip was over here, his nose was over there, his eyes were cut. I thought it was going to be a much tougher fight. Cotto won the first round but then Manny took over. When Manny knocked him down the first time Cotto gave up all thought of winning."
If Khan's mother could hear the relish in his voice as he celebrates Pacquaio's violent artistry she would feel even more worried. "That night was inspirational," Khan says. "You see Manny doing that and you think, 'I want to be in his position'. In Vegas you see the names lit up – Pacquiao versus Cotto – and it excites you. I want to see my name up there – Amir Khan versus whoever."
Amir Khan versus Dmitriy Salita pits a British-born Muslim against an Orthodox Jew from Ukraine who is now fighting out of Brooklyn. Khan and Salita are such generous characters that crude attempts to spark a religious rivalry between them have been quietly ignored. "Salita's sense of calm was what I noticed most when we met," Khan says. "He's coming into a different country, to face a world champion, but he wasn't nervous. I respect him for that. I also like it because it tells me I've got a test. This guy is not scared. He can take a good shot, he's durable and quick. But I feel, with my power, he won't be able to handle me."
The certainty with which Roach considers this likely victory is even more convincing. Roach worked briefly with Salita a few years ago and, praising him as "a good kid", he believes the threat posed by the light-hitting mandatory challenger is minimal. Khan can use Saturday as another step on the road towards more lucrative and dangerous fights against the likes of Juan Díaz and Juan Manuel Márquez – the WBA and WBO lightweight world champion who drew his first bout against Pacquiao and narrowly lost the rematch.
Khan also talks optimistically about meeting Mayweather in 2011, but two domestic contests are likelier to happen. On Saturday's undercard there is an intriguing fight between Prescott and Kevin Mitchell, the unbeaten London super-featherweight who, after 29 wins, moves up to lightweight. "It's a really good fight for Kevin," Khan says. "Prescott lost [in July] against an average Mexican [Miguel Vázquez]. Prescott dropped him in the first round but he was outpointed. If you can get past the first with Prescott you can beat him easy. That's why I think Kevin will win. He's a patient fighter with a good defence. If he beats Prescott a fight between me and Kevin would be interesting. But you have to remember Kevin is coming up from super-feather and I'd be too big."
A far bigger British fight for Khan looms in the bloated shape of Hatton who, predictably if sadly, is on the verge of a comeback. Roach is a compassionate man but he can't help grinning at the thought of Hatton facing a far younger, much quicker and hard-punching champion in Khan. "Freddie keeps telling me, 'You must take that fight against Hatton – he's made for you,'" Khan says.
"He's more worried Hatton will fight Márquez first and that could mess everything up. It might never happen but Hatton is a brilliant fight for me."
Hatton would be better advised to have a farewell workout before his adoring fans in Manchester against a soft-hitting journeyman. Khan shakes his head. "Hatton is a great guy. I love Hatton. He's a good friend of mine. I suffered a defeat and he helped me in a very supportive way. Now I'm totally behind him. I think he should come back and take those cobwebs away and prove himself."
Some of Hatton's followers will point to the way Prescott exposed Khan. But Roach has transformed him. "Losing to Prescott changed my whole career," Khan says. "Freddie has taken me to a different level. I'm sparring 60 more rounds in LA than I did before a fight in England and I'm up against very hungry boxers. It's proper fighting and that's why I feel ready for Hatton." Acknowledging that Hatton is in danger of being ruined by his boxing addiction, Khan shrugs when asked how he will avoid the same fate. "I'll beat that bug – easy. I won a proper world title at 22 while Hatton was older. I've done it a lot quicker than most fighters so I can always stop at 27, 28, 29."
Khan is smart enough to laugh then, as he keeps adding another year to his career. "It's tough to give up. What am I gonna do when it's time for me to stop and a superfight comes along and they say, 'Amir, we'll give you £20m'? Am I going to go 'Nah' or get off my rocking chair and take it? I know my mum won't like it but boxing's in my blood. I just hope I'll only fight the big names when I'm at my peak. I want to get the timing just right."
Source: guardian.co.uk
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