Amir Khan accused Kell Brook of being a “fanboy” and “obsessed” with him, while the boxers’ trainers and even father exchanged barbed comments at Thursday’s press conference in Manchester for Saturday’s long-overdue all-British clash.
Years of resentment came to the surface at the press conference, as tempers came close to simmering over.
The most raised voices came between the trainers after Brook’s long-time coach Dominic Ingle tried to wind up Brian “BoMac” McIntyre, who trained Terence Crawford to beat both boxers but who has trained Khan for this fight.
Ingle seemed upset by remarks McIntyre made during the “Behind the Ropes” documentary, where he said he knew “all about” Brook.
Ingle said that McIntyre had no real interest in Khan, saying he was just “filling in time” between paycheques from Crawford.
“I expected more from Brian who is a good talker,” Ingle said. “He likes to shout. He thinks he knows a lot about Brook.
“Khan is a good talker. But on the night there won’t be any talking. I believe Kell has more left, more in the tank.”
McIntyre hit back at Ingle, saying the reason why he was not in Brook’s corner for the Crawford fight was that he knew he was finished.
“You know how much Kell’s got left in the tank, don’t you?” McIntyre said. “That’s why you didn’t come over and fight us in America, because you knew he wasn’t going to do anything in that fight. It’s not going to change.
“Kell only went three rounds against Crawford. Amir actually came to fight.
“He’s good for four rounds. He’s got nothing left.
“We trained for 12 rounds but, if the stoppage is there, we will go for it.”
McIntyre got particularly upset when Ingle had a dig at McIntyre’s old record as a heavyweight journeyman, saying his own record of being knocked out would help him guide Khan through the knockdowns he believes he will suffer.
“You going to attack me?” McIntyre said. “That isn’t going to work. Them two got to fight, not me and you.”
Khan said that Brook had been jealous of them for their whole career, having sparred with him as members of the England amateur squad as teenagers.
“It’s been going on for ten years,” Khan said. “This is my time to put him in his place.
“Kell has always been obsessed with my career – he’s been like a fanboy. I’ve been living in his head for such a long time.
“I’ve been having my own career. My dream was always to win a world title and then fight at the likes of Madison Square Garden and the MGM, have you face lit up on the Las Vegas Strip. Kell was campaigning over here. That’s the reason the fight didn’t happen.
“A lot of people might say it is too late, but this has been massive. I think it’s the right time.
“Knowing that this is going to be one of the biggest fights in Britain is going to give me that push too. I’m worried about Kell’s health after the beating I am going to give him.
“We’ve done enough talking. I just can’t wait to get in the ring and do a job on him.
“It’s a big thing for us. It is going to haunt us for a very long time [if we don’t win]. I’m not going to put that in my mind. That’s why I have trained so hard and left no stone unturned. I’ve done everything I need to so I can’t lose this fight.”
Brook said the talks had first been for the fight to take place in December, but Khan’s delays had pushed it back. This, he said, allowed him more time to get ready.
“He made a mistake,” he said. “This fight should have happened before Christmas but I knew it was going to happen, so I have been training all that time. I’m going to be in the best possible shape to destroy him.”
He admitted, though, that fighting Khan had become such a big deal for him, having first predicted he would beat Khan in an interview in Boxing News when they were just 18.
“It goes back to the amateur days,” he said. “He was at 60kg, I was at 63.5kg. We went to the England team. He knew exactly who I was. He went to the Olympics and got a big signing-on fee, we were with the same promoter, Frank Warren, and we were always promised that we would fight down the line.
“But he has said in many interviews ‘who is Kell Brook?’ He has never given me that respect. I don’t like Amir, he don’t like me.
“We are three sleeps away. He is definitely going to sleep Saturday night when I smash him in.”
He then directed his sign-off straight at Khan. “After Saturday, nobody is going to be interested,” Brook said.
“You can go to Dubai and carry on doing what you are doing, that’s the end of you.”
Ron Lewis is a senior writer for BoxingScene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 - covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.
