Rumble in the jungle can revive Khan’s career
mir ‘King’ Khan ventures into his very own rumble in the jungle on Sunday for I’m A Celebrity..., claiming it is a chance to relaunch his boxing career.
Hmmm. Records suggest that bushtucker trials are far from the perfect preparation to win back world titles. That said, this twist in the career of Khan may work.
He is not the first boxer to embrace humiliating himself on reality TV with 11 other inmates and in front of millions. Khan, now 30, has been in the public eye since he won an Olympic silver medal in Athens in 2004, and joins a coterie of famous boxers who have ventured Down Under: Chris Eubank, Nigel Benn, Joe Bugner and David Haye.
He hopes this will keep him relevant. The former two-weight world champion has not been seen in a ring since he picked up a pot of gold after being brutally knocked out in Las Vegas 18 months ago by the
AMexican Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez. In spite of several promises to return to action, it has yet to happen.
This year, moreover. Khan has been in a soap opera all of his own. His wife, Faryal, pregnant with their second child, had a very public fallout with his family earlier this year before husband and wife themselves hung out the dirty laundry in public with talk of divorce. Just before Khan left for Brisbane, though, talk was they had reunited.
Scanning the list of jungle inmates over 17 series, more than 20 sportsmen and women have fared well against the soap legends, fading pop stars and wannabe reality TV stars. Superbikes legend Carl Fogarty, for example, won; Martina Navratilova – unusually for her – finished second. But it was Philip Tufnell, in the second series, with his Arthur Daley, cheeky
He has been in a similar environment – boredom, hardship, a lack of food to cut weight
chappie persona, who became an unlikely hit with the nation and his fellow jungle residents.
Indeed, if the Celebrity Jungle is to be seen as a means of relaunching a career, Tufnell is the benchmark: his career as a broadcaster took off, and is now in its second decade. All that sitting around in a pavilion on rain-sodden days entertaining bored team-mates with his own brand of comedy paid dividends in the end.
In the fight sphere, perhaps David Haye is the man who pulled the neatest PR turnaround. Laughed out of Hamburg for his damaged little toe excuse after his “non-battle” with Wladimir Klitschko, he came third in the 2012 series and created a new legion of aficionados. Soon after the show, thousands queued up to meet him at his gym in London.
Khan needs to take a leaf out of Haye’s book. Having known Khan for 14 years, my experience is of a personable man, slightly naive in many ways. That will likely come across.
Camp life ought not to be too uncomfortable. For 13 years, ahead of 35 fights, Khan has been stuck in a similar environment, going through boredom, hardship and a lack of food to cut his weight. Perfect preparation, then, for a 14-day stint under the glare of dozens of cameras and a public hungry to see the inmates humiliated.
But there is one huge risk. He does not mind getting punched in the face – but creepy crawlies are Khan’s Kryptonite.
As he told me: “I’m a mummy’s boy. My mum still gets rid of the spiders off my walls. She picks them up and chucks them outside. I don’t fear many things, but I fear snakes and spiders.” Which makes ‘King’ Khan in the jungle even more interesting. His opponents are, give or take, 250,000 cockroaches, 153,000 crickets, 2.5 million meal worms, 400 spiders, 500 rats and 30 snakes. This should be a fun fight.