Khan rejects retirement talk

07:33, 16 Jul 2012

Amir Khan insists he has no thoughts of retiring following his defeat to Danny Garcia and promised to come back "a lot better and a lot stronger".

Khan suffered a devastating second successive defeat in Las Vegas this weekend after being knocked down three times by American Garcia en route to a fourth-round stoppage in their WBA and WBC light-welterweight unification fight.

In the wake of that loss Carl Froch, the current IBF super-middleweight champion, suggested Khan should consider hanging up his gloves, but the 25-year-old Bolton boxer insists he is far from finished and hit back at Froch.

"Carl's always got his little things to say, I think I'll leave it at that really. I'm a young fighter, I'm 25, I'm not talking about retiring, I'm still young and I've got a lot in me," said Khan, who now has a 26-3 record with 18 early wins and two stoppage defeats.

"If he wants to retire, he can retire, he's talking about retiring. I'm in a tougher division. I'm fighting better opposition and I'm a bigger name than him, and I think that's what burns him really.

"People are going to say things after this fight, people said things after the (Breidis) Prescott fight (which he lost in 2008), and see how I came back after that. I'll come back stronger, I'm still young, I'm still hungry and I'll come back a lot better and a lot stronger."

Looking to the future Khan, who is looking for a rematch with Garcia, confirmed he will continue at light-welterweight and said on Radio 5 Live: "We've just got to go back to the drawing board, sit down with the team and see where we go from there.

"I'm going to give my body a little bit of a break now, spend some time with my family. There are a lot of options out there for me and it's about picking the right ones.

"The next fight will be in England, I hope. I'm going to relax for a week, not even think about boxing for a week or so, and then I'm going to leave it for my team to do a great job."