Amir Khan: From Bolton to Boxing champion
At the age of 17, Amir Khan became Britain’s youngest boxing Olympic medallist. He has successfully won 31 of his 35 boxing matches and remains one of the biggest faces in British boxing today.
With a recorded net worth of £23 million, Amir Khan has come a long way since his humble beginnings in Greater Manchester. The British-Pakistani started boxing at age 11 to attempt to combat his overactivity and bad behaviour at school — a distracting hobby that resulted in him winning three English school titles and three junior ABA (Amateur Boxing Association of England) titles.
A young Khan cemented his love for the sport when he watched footage of Muhammad Ali’s 1974 world heavyweight title victory over George Foreman. The 30-year-old continued to gain momentum in his boxing career, as he proceeded to win gold at the 2003 Junior Olympics and at the European Student Championships in 2004. His amateur record ended with an impressive 100 wins and only two defeats.
Khan is maligned for having a ‘weak chin’, but despite this, he became Britain’s third youngest boxing world champion when he took the WBA (World Boxing Association) title from Andriy Kotelnik at the tender age of 22. In addition to his achievements, Khan was named as Prospect of the Year by ESPN.com in 2007.
Khan’s career hit a low in 2008 when in one round with Breidis Prescott, he was beaten up, dropped twice and knocked out in 54 seconds. To add insult to injury, it was his first appearance on Sky Box Office. The iconic boxer came back as strong as ever a year later when he defeated Oisin Fagan and Antonio Barrera and went onto secure the WBA light welterweight title.
Amir’s defining win came in December 2010 when he defeated Maidana in a timeless fight. Khan racked up the rounds and survived heavy punches from his opponent near the finish-line to secure this win. The next year, he was nominated for the 2011 BBC Sports Personality of the Year but lost to the cyclist, Mark Cavendish.
Bolton-born Khan’s other love is charity work — he has successfully raised funds and awareness for Oxfam, NSPCC and Childline. In 2010, he invested £750,000 in and opened the Gloves Community Centre in Bolton, a centre that serves as a training facility, an amateur boxing club and an education centre for local kids.
Khan, nicknamed “King”, is a strict Muslim and a supporter of the Muslim Writers Awards. In spite of having a career that keeps him on his toes, Khan found time to find love and married Pakistani-American Faryal Makhdoom in 2013.
The couple went on to have a daughter, Lamisah, in 2014. Khan and Faryal contemplated a break-up half way through last year after they engaged in a very public Twitter feud, but managed to reconcile and are expecting their second child.
Khan recently appeared in the TV reality show I’m A Celebrity-Get Me Out of Here — putting boxing aside and hoping to reignite the public’s admiration for him.
