Cook backs Khan to Bounce Back

Newly crowned WBO World Super-Featherweight champion Nicky Cook has backed Amir Khan to return even stronger from defeat at the hands of Breidis Prescott. Khan was beaten in the first round by the heavy-handed Colombian at the M.E.N Arena in Manchester last Saturday night. But Cook insists that Khan's career is just beginning - and says the 21-year-old can take heart from his own experiences. Floored five times during a WBO World Featherweight title challenge in July last year against Steven Luevano, Cook regrouped and then returned in spectacular style to dethrone Alex Arthur at the weekend. Cook, 28, boxed superbly to capture the world title with a unanimous points decision. "I know the mental pain that Amir is going through because I experienced it after my loss to Luevano," said Cook. "But I said at the time that it's not what you do when you are winning that makes you a champion, but how you react when you have lost. I was soon back in the gym and determined to get a world title around my waist and it happened on Saturday night," "It's great to be winning and to have a perfect undefeated record but I believe a real champion shows his class when he has lost and then comes back even stronger to prove everyone wrong and become a champion again," "We are involved in the cruelest, toughest and hardest sport out there and there are no hiding places in the ring."
"I know as soon as Amir gets back in the gym, he will be ever more hungrier and determined to get back to the top and show everyone what he can really do," "One things for sure, Amir has the fight in him as he kept getting up from the knockdowns and wanted to carry on but the referee wisely stopped it," "He's a very talented lad and I've no doubts that he will come back from this," "All the great champions experience defeat in their careers, including some of the greatest ever British champions like Nigel Benn, Barry McGuigan, and Lennox Lewis were all defeated, and Amir can draw heart from what they went through."