By Scott Gilfoid: IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (33-0, 22 KOs) was reportedly stabbed in the leg and cut on the arm while taking a holiday in Tenerife. The injury isn’t life threatening, but it is something that could potentially spoil Brook’s plans for his tune-up fight on December 6th in Sheffield, UK. Brook, 28, was said to have lost quite a bit of blood from the stab wound, which occurred at 6:00 a.m. What precisely Brook was doing at 6 am is unclear.
The injury certainly makes things a little more complicated for Brook and his promoter Eddie Hearn, because we’re talking about a certain amount of time needed for Brook’s wounds to heal. And by the time the injuries do heal, Brook isn’t going to have a lot of time to train for his fight.
We’re already three months away from December 6th, and even under the best of circumstances, Brook is likely going to need to rush through his training to try and get in shape. The bad thing is he’s probably not going to be able to start doing any road work with a stab wound in his leg right now.
If Hearn wants to still go through with the December 6th fight, he might choose an especially soft opponent for Brook to fight in order to make sure that he gets the win and looks good. He didn’t look good in his last fight against Shawn Porter, that’s for sure.
Hearn wanted Brook to fight a well-known opponent that American boxing fans have heard of, such as Josesito Lopez, Andre Berto or Brandon Rios. He didn’t seem excited about putting Brook in with Keith Thurman or Devon Alexander for a variety of reasons. Hearn wants Brook’s December 6th fight to be a showcase type affair, and he obviously couldn’t put him in a showcase if he’s going to get possibly beaten by those two fighters.
Thurman was ringside for the Brook-Porter fight, and he reportedly scored it a draw. He didn’t see Brook as having done enough to deserve the victory. Thurman said he’d like to fight Brook and take his unbeaten record from him. Thurman is going to have a hard time giving Brook his first defeat if Hearn isn’t going to let him fight Brook.
Hearn wants to have Brook look good in his December 6th fight so that he can setup a summer clash between Brook and Amir Khan at Wembley Stadium. Hearn says he’s in the process of negotiating a fight between them.
It might be better off for Hearn to let Brook sit for the remainder of 2014 so that he can lick his wounds and wait for them to heal so that he can get the Khan cash out fight. If Hearn’s idea is to put Brook in with Josesito Lopez or Berto in order to get the attention of the American boxing public, I see that as a poor plan, because Berto and Lopez are no longer relevant fighters at 147.
If Hearn wants to get a guy that he can showcase Brook against, he needs to get someone like Alexander or Luis Collazo. Hearn might also want to pull Brook to the side and tell him not to hold so much this time, because his last fight against Porter was nearly unwatchable due to the constant holding that Brook did.
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