Kell Brook: Former welterweight champion announces retirement from boxing aged 36
Less than three months ago, Kell Brook defeated his arch-rival Amir Khan via a sixth-round knockout at the AO Arena in Manchester in the pair's long-anticipated bout; his career record reads 40 wins and three losses in 43 professional fights, 28 of those wins by knockout
Saturday 7 May 2022 17:00, UK
Kell Brook has announced his retirement from boxing, with the former welterweight world champion calling time on his career at the age of 36.
In February, Brook defeated his arch-rival Amir Khan via a sixth-round knockout at the AO Arena in Manchester in the pair's long-anticipated bout.
Brook's career record reads 40 wins and three losses in 43 professional fights, 28 of those wins by knockout. His three defeats came against middleweight Gennady Golovkin, and welterweights Terence Crawford and Errol Spence.
Speaking to the Telegraph, Brook said: "I've had a long chat with my family and my parents, and it's over for me. I'll never box again.
"It's a little emotional to be actually saying this out loud. My mum is relieved. I think everyone around me is pleased.
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"Truth is, boxing is a very, very tough, dangerous sport, one in which you can be legally killed in the ring, and I've finished now with all my faculties intact."
Asked if he could ever be tempted out of retirement for a future comeback, the Sheffield-born fighter said: "I just don't see it. It's not there anymore."
Brook held the IBF welterweight title from 2014 to 2017 and was ranked as the world's best active welterweight by The Ring magazine in 2017.
Brook's victory over Shawn Porter in 2014 to claim the IBF crown made him the first British boxer to take a world title from an unbeaten American on US soil since Lloyd Honeyghan against Donald Curry in 1986.
Brook says he is "at peace" with his decision, having realised his dream to be a world champion. He added that there is "no dark feeling left in me" after finally getting to face Khan in the ring in what proves to be his final fight.
"I needed the Khan fight, I needed to settle the grudge, the feud," Brook said. "There is no dark feeling left in me now, I think when you have been in the ring with someone it passes, it leaves you.
"Me and Amir said some words which were hateful in the build-up, but that's what happens in boxing.
"I respect him after the fight. He showed real heart in there."
Asked of his boxing legacy, Brook added: "I'd just like to be remembered as a fighter who would go in with anyone, feared no one, and who gave the fans what they wanted."
