Amir Khan devastated after fight cancellation

Khan devastated fight is OFF pic Amir Khan

The long awaited rematch between Lamont Peterson and Amir
Khan was going to take place on May 19, however with Lamont Peterson failing a
drugs test the NASC ruled that Peterson will not be given a licence which resulted
in this fight being cancelled.

Khan who
lost the IBF and the WBA 140lb titles under controversial circumstances on
points last December stated that Peterson was a cheat.

Amir Khan has apologised to fans today and earlier this
afternoon I caught up with Shahid Mahmood who is Amir Khan’s uncle and also the
Director of Sports Corporation. 

Q  – Hello Shahid, So give us your first thought about this rematch fight
between Lamont Peterson & Amir Khan being cancelled ?

Shahid – Well we’re totally devastated Amir Khan is devastated
and ourselves and I’m sure that all the fans are devastated due to the fight
being cancelled.   We have been set back
something like six months, well the point is he was hoping to put in his best
performance and move up to 147. We were looking for this to be his last fight
before he moved to 147, now were not certain about what’s going to happen
now.  I’ve been unable to speak to my
brother Shah who is still in L.A at the moment, we’ll see what happens from
now.

Q – Ok, so who made the decision to cancel the
fight?

Shahid  – From my
understanding the commission said that they won’t be allowing it  and won’t be issuing the license.

Q – So you’ve been running Sports Corporation for
a while now can you tell us what kind of financial impact will this have on
Team Khan ? Do you see it as a setback?

Shahid  –
Financially it’s going to give him a setback a little bit, Sports Corporation
is more of a prestige events company and he wanted to beat Peterson by
competing and move over to 147 and take his step in that direction and it has
put him back a little bit as I said and we will have to just weigh up the
situation and see what happens now.

Q – Is it easy for fans to get a refund and how
will they go about that ?

Shahid  – Well I’m
in London right in the offices and hopefully we at sports corporation will
issue refunds and all the refunds to the fans will be made as soon as possible,
all the fans here are totally devastated at the moment, I’ve had a lot of calls
and they are very upset, they’ve booked their holidays from work, booked their
hotels over there in Vegas and are totally devastated and they really are
upset. (see below for ticket refund information)

Q – Now your nephew Amir Khan is in LA at the
moment and due to return this weekend, with all the work that he has put into
the training camp in the Philippines for 10 weeks, how do you think he’s
feeling right now and have you spoken to him ?

Shahid  – I’ve not
actually spoken to him because of the time difference and I’ve had come down to
London from Bolton for a couple of meetings over here, now he’s obviously very
upset and was really looking forward to the fight and we’ll have to see what
happens now.