The ending to Terence Crawford vs. Amir Khan was not the one most, if not everyone at Madison Square Garden expected, but Khan explains why the fight ended with him being on the receiving end of am accidental low blow.
Early in the sixth round of their WBO welterweight title fight, Crawford hit Khan below the belt and the British challenger went down on the canvas. After moving his way to the corner and a brief conversation between the referee and trainer Virgil Hunter, the fight was called off. As a result of the fight, Crawford retained his world title.
Khan was interviewed by BBC Sport after the fight to get his thoughts on the ending of the fight. Khan started off by rejecting the notion that he quit in the fight and that he was simply too hurt to continue fighting.
"I'd never quit from anything. I'd rather be knocked out. I would rather, honestly be knocked out, than quitting a fight. It's just not in me to quit, and I was obviously hit with a low show and I couldn't recover from it. That's the reason the fight was called off. I tried to continue, but it was just getting worse and obviously, Virgil in the corner called it off and we just chose to not fight," Khan said.
Expanding on that interaction with the referee in the sixth round, Khan said he wasn't able to continue and after the referee said he would give Khan five minutes to rest, Hunter decided to end the night.
"He said, 'I'm going to stop the fight' and I said, 'No. I don't want to stop the fight.' And then he said to me, 'Okay, I'm going to give you five minutes.' And then I could feel it getting worse and then Virgil stepped up and said, 'Let's pull it,'" Khan said.
With Khan being offered five minutes to rest, the immediate question was why didn't the former world champion take advantage of that rest period and see if he can continue. Khan explained that he didn't know he had five minutes to rest and if he knew, he would have taken his time.
"I honestly didn't know I had five minutes. If I'd known, I probably would have taken the full five minutes to be honest with you. I just couldn't think straight. It did hurt me. I mean, mentally, I couldn't think straight after I was hit below the belt," Khan said.
You can read the full results of the entire card live from Madison Square Garden at this link.
