Boxing icon, Amir 'The King' Khan now to take on 2-time world champion, Billy Dib in a showdown on July 12

The first ever Pakistan-India showdown was to be held in a fight at the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in which The King, Amir Khan was to take on Neeraj Goyat on July 12 but Neeraj faced a terrible fate as he got involved in a car accident.

Although the 27-year old Indian boxer, Neeraj is recovering well from the accident but it is clear that he would not be able to completely recover in time and be fully fit to fight Khan on the scheduled date, to which the Indian promoter, Bill Dosanjh of The Super Boxing League has moved quickly to secure Khan a new opponent, who now is the World Class-former-two-time World Champion, Billy Dib.

To the change of 32-year old boxer, Amir Khan's counterpart he said,

“First of all my heart goes out to Neeraj and I pray for him to make a full recovery and is fit and healthy again to resume his boxing career. We have had to make the decision to find a replacement and we have done extremely well in securing Dib to now be in the opposite corner.”

The British born, Pakistani boxer, Amir Khan holds an incredible record of 33 wins among his total 38 fights contested, with 20 of them won by KO. Khan is a former unified light-welterweight world champion, having held the WBA (later Super) title from 2009 to 2012, and the IBF title in 2011. At regional level, he held the Commonwealth lightweight title from 2007 to 2008. He also held the WBC Silver welterweight title from 2014 to 2016, and once challenged for a middleweight world title in 2016.

When asked of the bout against his new counterpart he said,

“This fight is a landmark moment for boxing in Saudi Arabia and myself, Bill, the Saudi GSA and the government have worked tirelessly to put this event together. We wanted to keep the event on during the important Saudi Season and ensure the fans in Saudi get to watch this great event. I have been a professional for nearly 14 years now and I have seen and dealt with near enough everything in that time so adjusting to a new opponent and challenge is part and parcel of the boxing business so I have just got to sit down with my team and work on the new plan. "

While on the other side, Billy Dibb is an Australian professional boxer who held the IBF Featherweight Title from 2011 to 2013, and the IBO Super-Featherweight Title in 2008. Dib's first professional fight was against Chad Roy Naidu in August 2004, as an 18-year-old. He won, and subsequently went on to win the next 20 bouts, not losing until October 2008, against Steven Luevano.

The Two-time World Champion, Khan will headline the groundbreaking boxing extravaganza in the Middle East that also features Hughie Fury, Prince Patel and Dave Penasola all in championship title action to which he expressed,

“I am really excited that the fight is still on, I would have been absolutely distraught if my dream of fighting in Saudi had to be put on hold. Dib is a respected and experienced two-time World Champion so I am looking forward to pitting my skill against him.

This Khan VS Dib showdown will exclusively be telecasted live on Channel 5 and the undercard on 5Spike on Friday- July 12.