Amir Khan says Anthony Joshua rang him after he accused him of sleeping with wife Faryal Makhdoom
The Bolton boxer accused countryman Joshua of being involved with his wife - but the claims were completely unfounded
AMIR KHAN has buried the hatchet with Anthony Joshua over their extra-marital mix-up and he wants to get back to rowing in the ring only.
The Bolton fighter endured a messy break-up with wife Faryal Makhdoom over social media that took a bizarre twist when he wrongly accused the heavyweight champ of being involved with his missus.
But the 6ft 4in IBF and WBA king was the bigger man and reached out to Khan who knows he needs to put a stop to the public feuds and social media nonsense to get his once-sensational career back on track after a hat-trick of hand operations.
Drawing a line under the AJ fiasco, Khan said: “He rang me, he spoke to me. Everything is cool.
“I said: ‘look, everything was a misunderstanding and we just put a bag over it’
“He goes: ‘I want be able to come over and shake your hand, champ.’
“We want to keep that respect and love.”
The 30-year-old Olympic silver medallist has not fought since his brutal KO loss to Mexican master Canelo Alvarez in May 2016.
During that time the father-of-one has had to handle a bitter break-up with members of his management team.
But he has reunited with his family and now wants to blow away some cobwebs and opponents to remind people why he was once the unified light-welterweight world champion.
He said: “I need one fight, get it over and then it’s back to normal again.
“People are very frustrated - as much as I am myself - that I have not fought for a long time.
“I want to do what I do best and people are forgetting that.
“But it has only been because of the hand and it takes time for the hand to heal.
“It gets frustrating because people are focusing on other things and making them bigger than they are.
“But once my training camp starts, that’s it. That’s my focus.”
Khan fears the public breakdown of his marriage and the accusations his estranged wife – who claims to be pregnant with his second child – will turn fight fans against him.
But he is using that motivation to prove people wrong and fight his way back to the top of boxing after a heart-breaking year.
He said: “It's always a tough time. There's always ups and downs in life, and it's how you come through it.
“This has only given me the chance now to focus more on boxing.
“This is where people are going to start saying 'Amir's going to fail now; we want to see him fail; he's not going to be the same again with all those distractions'.
“I'm going to have to prove people wrong now, by going in there and staying on top.
“I'm 30: maybe because I've been in the game for such a long time people forget I'm only 30 years old. I'm at the peak of my career now.
“Even my fight against Canelo, my last fight, I was beating Canelo in my opinion, on points, I was out-boxing him, and obviously got caught with a big shot: that's boxing for you.
“I know the boxing skills are still there. My speed's still there, my power's still there.
"All it is is just fine-tuning myself now, going back to camp, getting away from all the distractions and doing what I do best.”
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