By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn thinks that his fighter IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (33-0, 22 KOs) is now in the position where he can call the shots in terms of a future fight Amir Khan.
Hearn sees the combination Brook having beaten Shawn Porter (24-1-1, 15 KOs) last Saturday night and having won his IBF welterweight title as being enough to put Brook in a position where he’d have the upper hand against Khan in negotiations.
I’m not sure that I agree with that. First of all, Brook having won the IBF title makes him arguably the 4th best of the 4 champions at 147. You have to rate WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr and WBO 147 pound champion Manny Pacquiao ahead of Brook as for being legitimate champions.
Additionally, you have to see WBA interim welterweight champion Keith Thurman as being ahead of Brook as well, because Thurman has looked so invincible thus far. As such, Brook is little more than a paper champion at 147 and not the top #1 or even the top #3 guy.
Brook having a world title loses it’s significance when you realize he’s more of a champion 1D than 1A. It’s the same with the middleweight division with many boxing fans seeing IBF middleweight champion Sam Soliman as a paper champion. Besides that, Brook’s win over Porter was a controversial decision in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans.
Even Khan said he saw Brook as several points down at the end of the fight last night. So, with the way Brook was given what many boxing fans saw as a gift decision, and with him not seen as the top fighter at 147, it pretty much takes away any bargaining power that Brook would otherwise have going for him in a fight against Khan.
“Kell has wanted the Khan fight for three or four years,” Hearn said to Skysports.com. “The British public has wanted it for 18 months or a year. It was always ‘if Kell had a belt,’ but now he’s got one and I think Kell can probably call the shots. I don’t think Amir will like that! If everyone sits down and realizes this is a great fight for Britain. There’s a lot of money to be made for both fighters. We saw what happened between Carl Froch and George Groves at Wembley and we can do something like that again.”
A Khan-Brook fight can definitely take place, but I can see the as one that will prove be impossible to put together because of both guys wanting to be top dog in the negotiations. If Hearn assumes that Khan is going to be the B-side in the negotiations simply because Brook won his first world title, he’s kidding himself. Like I said, the fight was controversial, and Brook isn’t seen as the No.1 or even the No.2 guy.
Brook is down bringing up the rear behind the top dogs – Mayweather, Pacquiao and Thurman – in the welterweight division right now in my view. Of course, Brook could change things dramatically if he were to put Hearn on putting together a fight between him and Thurman. If Brook can beat Thurman, then he’ll put himself in a much better position to get a bigger cut of the loot in a fight against Khan next year.
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