Amir Khan

You have to be confident when you've got someone in front of you who wants to beat you and take the title from you. But I think people mistake my confidence for arrogance or cockiness.

As a kid, I was hyperactive and the naughty one in school. I wouldn't listen to anyone and thought I knew best. At home, I was always breaking things and annoying everyone.

I want people talking about me as a great fighter - from being a prospect with the big pressure as soon as I turned professional, then going on to win the world title.

I have been very lucky with what I have achieved.

My grandfather on my dad's side was the first in our family to settle in the U.K. He came from Pakistan on his own in the '60s and worked in a cotton mill in Bolton, earning enough to bring over the rest of his family. My dad, Shah, was only about eight when he came to this country. Like most immigrants, he has a fierce work ethic.

I used to have Lamborghinis, Ferraris parked up outside the house - just parked there with no one driving them! Now I'm much wiser, and I only have one car that I drive. What's the point of having three cars just parked up when you don't need them?

One thing for sure is that I am not going to attempt to knock Barrera out. My boxing ability and my speed are the attributes that will get me the win.

Of course I will turn professional at some stage. Then I want to be a world champion and finish up a legend and be out of the sport by the time I am 27.

My sport will always be important to me.

If I spend silly, it's going to look bad, in a way, because I do all this charity work as well.

The good thing about being nervous is that you perform better.

I always said as an amateur that I'd want to one day fight and beat Kindelan because he was the best out there.

King chiller. That was me.

I know for a fact if I were a white English fighter, maybe I would have been a superstar in Britain - and the world.

If I look at my career financially, I think it's one of the best careers any fighter's had.

We like to entertain, but it is not our duty to do so. I have had a lot of exciting fights and been hit way too much, so that is something to think about.

I know people didn't think I'd become a world champion - even people probably in my own camp, my own team, didn't think I'd become a world champion this quickly.

The last week before a fight always goes really slow.

What happened to me against Prescott didn't make Prescott a better fighter than me.

Boxing's not going to retire me; I'll retire from boxing. That's where most people make mistakes. They normally stay in the game a bit too long.

All the bad press I was getting puts you on a downer, so really, you come to a stage where you start hating yourself, in a way, because you're not in control.

I look out there, and I see that Floyd Mayweather stands head and shoulders above everyone else. He's another fighter I would like to base myself on because he's got incredible fast hands and feet. He's flashy but, man, is he good.

The thing is, I'm never scared. It's just in the blood, really. My family come from a warrior clan background, the Rajput tribe from the Punjab, and that could be one of the reasons. Going into fights just seems normal to me.

It's just such an addictive sport. Only now I can understand why ex-fighters come back. That addiction helps me set new goals and targets.

My main priorities were to fight for Britain. Not a lot of Asians get selected for this country at anything, and it's a great achievement.

I think I'm one of the hardest-training fighters in the world.

Boxing's a business, and I've got a great team around me who have been looking after me in that sense.

If you start throwing eight or nine shots, you're going to get caught - bang - and the fight could be over.

I came back from the Olympic Games, and straightaway, I'm this role model. So that means I can't mess around with my mates like I used to because, if I do, people are going to use it to knock me down.

You need to have a very strong relationship with your coaches. For me, Freddie Roach is like a father figure.

I think it is very important to keep the kids off the street and out of trouble.

We're prizefighters. That's what we become. Boxing has one of the biggest purses in sport. And in the sporting field, we probably make the most money.

I was very hyperactive when I was a kid, just misbehaving at school like most kids, and I would probably be 10 times worse at home.

You're always just one punch away from getting hurt. But look, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen. I think I'm going to walk out of this sport of boxing when I think it's the right time.

I'm proud to be British.

I've been working a lot on my lateral movement, and angles - it's coming natural to me now - and on different techniques, keeping my hands right.

People forget that boxing is the art of self-defence - ideally, hit and not be hit - and maybe we should all think about that a bit more.

If I hadn't gone towards boxing, I might have been one of those kids getting into trouble. A lot of my friends did. They were clever kids at school, but they just went down the wrong path.

I grew up in a loving household.

The boxing world can be a very lonely one, and I'm so grateful every day to have Dad and my whole family watching my back. It would be unthinkable if I didn't have their support.

Whose mother wants to see her son fight? It's very hard for her - but boxing is in my blood.

I love the British public and the British fans; they are true boxing fans. If you get them on your side, you can go right to the end and achieve anything in life.

I want to thank Kotelnik for letting me have a shot at the title. I'm so confident I'm going to beat him. He thinks that me moving up a weight, I won't be as strong, but I'm very strong. I'm a hard-hitting fighter.

I can only say that sometimes skin colour does make a difference.

I used to eat what I want, on a junk diet, and used to think I could make my weight easy and kill myself over the last four or five days.

I'm just a fighter.

There are a lot of fighters with no family support, but your family are honest with you. Look at the types who were around Mike Tyson. They are not going to tell you when you are wrong; they'll just call you the champ.

I looked up to cricket players such as Imran Khan.

People come into fights against me and say this and that, but when they realise how quick and how hard I hit, their game plan disappears.

I want to retire from boxing by the time I am 25 or 26 and be a legend by that age.