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Kell Brook on Khan's cowardice and electric rehab

Kell Brook says it is worth sacrificing the Christmas festivities for boxing © Getty Images

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Kell Brook tells ESPN Christmas is cancelled for him as he prepares for a first defence of his IBF world welterweight title in March after undergoing specialist treatment at Sheffield United to help him recover from being stabbed in the leg last September:

My Christmas and New Year has been cancelled this year as I get ready for the first defence of my world title. I will be hard at work in the run-up and in between Christmas and New Year while everyone is off.

It has happened this way a few years for me in my boxing career. I've missed a lot of family birthdays, my baby's birthday and Christmases because I need to train. But it's part and parcel of the job I do. You have to make sacrifices but the rewards can be massive so it's worthwhile, and then you can do what you want after the fight. Of course I miss out on all the food that is flying around at this time of year. I can't have any of the Christmas food while everyone else is tucking in.

After my leg injury, I'm doing everything I used to be able to do now in training. I'm sprinting and diving around the ring. Now it's about moving up a gear in training and getting myself in perfect condition for my first world title defence.

I was working with Sheffield United at their academy, where they train, to help with my rehab after getting stabbed in the leg. They had electric transmitters on my leg and were working me on a bike and on different machines in the gym. All the time it was getting my leg stronger. They were massaging me in the right way and they have done superbly in getting me right. I can't thank them enough for what they have done for me. I'm back in the Wincobank Gym now and I feel as good as new.

We are looking at me fighting someone at the Sheffield Arena on March 10. Me being world champion means you are going to get names like Devon Alexander, Amir Khan, Tim Bradley or Juan Manuel Marquez linked to fighting you.

My mandatory defence is coming around so maybe we have to deal with that first [Canada-based Romanian Dan Ion fights Canadian Kevin Bizier on December 19 in an IBF title eliminator], and Marquez has also been talked about. I'll let my promoter Eddie Hearn deal with that, but obviously I also have input.

Khan fights Alexander at the weekend and Devon is going to be up for it. It's going to be closer than people are making out. It will be a close fight but I think Khan will scrape through. There will be a bit of drama at some point in the fight but Amir has more of a boxing brain and definitely more speed than Devon.

Chasing the money

Amir Khan and Devon Alexander face off © Getty Images

• Amir Khan is in a pack of boxers racing to fight Floyd Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao, but he will find it tough to stand out from the crowd, writes Steve Bunce
• Click here to read the full story

Amir still needs to prove he's a proper welterweight. He has 100% jumped the queue in fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr, if that's what happens next year. He has only had one fight at welterweight and has been knocked out twice in his career.

I wanted to make it a hat-trick on him by knocking him out at Wembley next summer. He says he wants the big fights but he's not even the best in Britain, I am, and he could earn more money fighting me than Mayweather.

Khan says I'm an easier opponent than Alexander, then why not fight me instead when you can earn more money and there's a world title on the line? It's more worth his while, but he chose to fight Alexander for no world title and is talking about the Mayweather fight after that. I don't understand where he is coming from.

I have earned it the hard way and if anyone should be in line to face Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao, it should be me, not him [Khan].

I hope he keeps his hands up against Alexander and doesn't get chinned again. It would mess things up a bit if that happened. He can talk things up like he always does and he will come out with some other excuse but it would slightly kill a fight between us. We need to bubble wrap Khan, ideally.

All Amir is about is the big pay day against Mayweather, that's what he wants the big fight for, the big pay day. That's why he's not talking about me because he will get chinned if we fight and then there will be no big bout for him.

He wants to fight Mayweather and when he loses he's got a big bag of dosh and then there's still the fight with me that he will get well paid for. But that's not how it should work.

Of course the Khan fight is what I want. How can it not make sense? It's a massive fight, as big as Froch-Groves II at Wembley last May and makes superb sense to do. I don't see why he's banging on about the Mayweather fight when there's a bigger fight in his backyard. He doesn't deserve to be fighting Mayweather, or me for that matter, but I just want to get rid of him.

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