By Edward Chaykovsky

Former world champion Amir Khan (31-4, 19KOs) is hoping to return to the ring on a date in March of next year.

Khan has been out of the ring since May, when he moved up to a catch-weight of 155-pounds to challenge Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez for the WBC middleweight world title at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

After a good start in the early rounds, size and power caught up with him and he was brutally knocked out in the sixth round.

Since his time out of the ring, Khan has undergone two operations on his right hand. The hand has been giving him problems for a decade, says the boxer. He felt the time was right to get the lingering injury in order.

"I've been super busy traveling all over the world doing charity work and stuff. With the hand operation I've just had, I just wanted this to heal the right way. I had some screws put in there. I had the surgery not once but twice. I should be back in the ring, I'm thinking around March time. It was something that I was suffering for a long time and it's just getting fixed now," Khan told BoxNation.

"Even with the Alvarez fight. When I was in the back putting the gloves on, the gloves didn't feel right and I had to go to number two and then go back to number one again. Hopefully I come back nice and strong with no excuses at all, and hopefully I'll come back to the ring next year."

Khan does not regret his decision to move up in weight, but says Canelo was far too big for him.

"To be honest with you,. I thought it was a great experience for me. I always thought about what would happen if I moved up a weight. I moved up a weight and it wasn't for me. You always have to respect weight categories and that's something I just realized now," Khan said.

"Canelo was a big guy, he came to the ring weighing around 180, almost touching 190. I came to the ring at 160 and I just wasn't big enough, I wasn't strong enough. I watched the fight back again and I could see when I was throwing those punches that nothing was affecting him. I'm going to go back to my natural weight of 147-pounds. I'm still the WBC number one at that weight and hopefully go for that title."