Amir Khan says a clash against long-time rival Kell Brook will only act as a "tune-up fight" for even bigger bouts in his future.
Khan (31-4 KO19) has not fought since suffering a devastating knockout defeat to WBO light-middleweight champion Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez in May, but confirmed he is in talks to face Brook in a long-awaited all-British welterweight showdown in March.
Brook, the reigning IBF world welterweight champion (36-1 KO25), is back in the gym after failing in his quest to dethrone middleweight king Gennady Golovkin at The O2 in September and recently urged Khan to front up and finally sign a deal for them to meet in the ring in 2017.
"That fight between me and him can happen, I mean I do consider it," Khan told Badlefthook.com.
"I don't mind having that as a tune-up fight - the Kell Brook fight - before I go into big fights, so we in talks, I've left it to my team. I have a great team in the UK now."
And Khan says he is already eyeing up the winner of the unification bout between WBC champion Danny Garcia and WBA champion Keith Thurman, which is also scheduled to take place in March.
He added: "Well I think [Garcia-Thurman] is going to happen in March, I want to be back around March time myself, so maybe my March fight can be a tune-up and then go straight into a big fight towards the end of the year with one of the winners."
Brook sustained a fractured right eye socket in his bruising fifth-round stoppage loss to GGG, but emerged from the fight with his reputation enhanced.
Khan, however, has claimed the defeat to the Kazakh knockout specialist only proved that Brook did not belong on the big fight stage.
"I know why [Brook] took that fight, because I took the Canelo fight going up in weight. And still by losing to Canelo I got a lot of credit," said Khan, who underwent surgery on a broken right hand in the summer.
"But my fight was a little different to what Brook and Triple G had because Triple G was all over him from the first round.
"Triple G was winning every round. With me...I was winning the fight, I was up man, I was winning the fight. Obviously one punch can change a fight. But with [GGG-Brook] I think it was a mismatch.
"Kell Brook does not belong in big fights...I just think Kell Brook shouldn't be in the ring with someone like Golovkin, Golovkin was on a different level. And I just think that once Kell moves up to that next level he's always going to get beat."