By Scott Gilfoid: 26-year-old undefeated welterweight contender Kell Brook (27-0, 18 KO’s) could be facing 147 pound contender Carson Jones (34-8-2, 24 KO’s) on July 7th in the UK, according to Dan Rafael on his twitter. Sadly, this amounts to be a huge step up from the 2nd tier opposition that Brook has been mostly facing his entire eight year pro career. I really hate this fight. Carson has been beaten a lot of times in his career already and only once sanctioning body has him ranked in the top 15.

It looks like Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn has failed in getting any of the big named fighters to travel all the way to the UK to fight the still little known Brook. Who can blame them? Hearn wanted Paulie Malignaggi, Marcos Maidana and Zab Judah, but it doesn’t look like he was able to make it worth their while to travel there and risk getting jobbed.

Brook, #5 IBF, #5 WBO, #6 WBA, #6 WBC, is coming off of a win over Matthew Hatton last March. Before that, Brook defeated Luis Galarza, Rafal Jackiewicz, Lovemore N’dou, Philip Kotey and Michael Jennings. In other words, less than popular fighters that were no threat to beating Brook. I don’t know why Brook is being brought along so slowly, but it’s almost comical to hear Hearn talking about Brook’s next fights being a big named fighter over and over again. Instead, we see Brook fighting Matthew Hatton, Galarza or Jackiewicz. Now we got Jones.

Jones, #3 IBF, has built up a nice record with only wins over 2nd tier opposition. He’s tried to step it up and was smacked back down by Jesus Soto Karrass three years ago. A year later, Jones got beat again this time by Rogerio Pereira by a 10 round decision. Since then it’s been soft opposition and Jones has done well.

Brook’s promoter is eager to put him in with newly crowned WBA welterweight paper champion Paulie Malignaggi, but there’s been little interest from Malignaggi’s side in giving Brook a chance. Brook hasn’t done what he’s needed to do to make himself appealing to the likes of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao due to his resume lacking quality opponents. As such, Brook probably won’t ever get a big money fight against those guys before they retire and will have to settle for whatever contender he can get. What makes it more difficult for Brook and Hearn is that they want the top fighters to travel to the UK so that Brook can fight at home, and that’s not going to happen unless Hearn is willing to pay Brooks’ opponents a ton of money.