Kell Brook has announced his retirement from boxing on the back of his win over Amir Khan in Manchester in February. Brook dominated and eventually stopped Khan in a relatively underwhelming fight given the needle between the pair in the build-up.
“I’ve had a long chat with my family and my parents, and it’s over for me. I’ll never box again,” Brook told the Sunday Telegraph. “It’s a little emotional to be actually saying this out loud. My mum is relieved. I think everyone around me is pleased. 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.”
There had been talk of Brook taking on Chris Eubank Jnr or Conor Benn in the aftermath of his stoppage of an undercooked Khan three months ago, but time away from the ring has led to the Sheffield-born fighter deciding enough is enough.
“I needed the Khan fight, I needed to settle the grudge, the feud,” he 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. But I respect him after the fight. He showed real heart in there.”
Brook fought 43 times during his professional career, winning 40 and losing three. Brook was the IBF welterweight champion between 2014 and 2017 after beating Shawn Porter in California. In 2017, he was named by The Ring magazine as the best active welterweight fighter.
A first career defeat was inflicted upon Brook by Gennady Golovkin in 2016, with his other losses coming against Errol Spence Jr and Terence Crawford in 2017 and 2020 respectively.