By Scott Gilfoid: IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (33-0, 22 KOs) claims that his opponent for this Saturday night #1 IBF Jo Jo Dan (34-2, 18 KOs) is a dangerous fighter despite him having very little punching power, and having been beaten twice by Selcuk Aydin in the past.
It’s hard to take Brook seriously when he talks of Dan being dangerous, because he’s not a puncher, he’s a boxer.
Dan hasn’t faced the top portion of the best welterweights during his career, and Aydin appears to be the best opponent he’s ever faced before. It’s troubling that Dan was beaten twice by Aydin, and it’s also very confusing why the International Boxing Federation would give Dan a high #1 ranking with their organization after those loses. It’s like giving a student an A after he fails two important tests.
The Brook-Dan fight will be taking place this Saturday, March 28th at the Motorpoint Arena, Sheffield, Yorkshire, United Kingdom. Given what appears to be a terrible mismatch on paper, Brook should win without having to take his game out of 1st gear. He can literally coast and win this fight, because Dan just hasn’t shown the talent during his 11-year pro career that he’s good enough to beat even a fringe contender in my view.
I think Dan lose badly to the bottom dwellers of the welterweight division like Deniz Ilbay, Jeff Horn, Josesito Lopez, Yoshihiro Kamegai and Konstantin Ponomarev. If Dan can’t beat the bottom #15 guys, then of course he’s not going to be able to compete against a champion like Brook.
“He’s very hungry, emotional. He’ll be very dangerous,” Brook said via Skysports.com about Jo Jo Dan. “He’s coming in with his dream to win that world title so I know I’ll have my hands full.”
Brook wants to use the Jo Jo Dan fight as a springboard to getting fights against Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao, but unfortunately that’s not how it goes, at least not how it goes if you want a Mayweather fight. To get a Mayweather fight, you usually need to beat well-known fighters that gets you a lot of attention with the fans and puts you on the boxing map. With Pacquiao it’s a little different. There are fighters who can get a fight against Pacquiao without having beaten big names.
We saw that with Chris Algieri, Brandon Rios, and Tim Bradley. Those guys got the fights with Pacquiao initially without having beaten popular fighters. If Brook is going to get a big fight, it’ll likely be Pacquiao rather than Mayweather, because Mayweather is going to want to face someone that is well-respected and well-known to the casual boxing fans in the U.S. Beating Jo Jo Dan on Showtime isn’t going to be enough to make a name for Brook. In other words, I don’t see a ton of people tuning in on Saturday night to see Brook vs. Dan, because it’s not a great fight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWqESHUJPmI
“That’s why I’ve put myself through it in training, but I was born to do this,” Brook said. “I’m ready if the fight ends early, if it goes all the way, I’m prepared for it, 100 per cent. It’s nearly time now and honestly and truthfully, I can’t wait.”
If Brook wants to get a fight against Mayweather, Pacquiao or Amir Khan, he should be fighting the likes of Marcos Maidana, Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia, and Lucas Matthysse. Brook also needs to fight those guys without clinching frequently like he did in his recent fight against Shawn Porter. He not only needs to beat these guys, but he needs to beat them in an entertaining manner.
I don’t consider the way that Brook beat Porter as an entertaining fight. To me, it was painfully boring watching all the clinching that Brook did to shut down the offense of Porter. Brook used the old clinch and grab technique to nullify Porter’s offense and it was just so incredibly boring. It was like watching one fighter stall out a fight by running around the ring so he wouldn’t get hurt. I don’t know why the referee didn’t take points off from Brook for all the clinching he was doing, because it interrupted the flow of the fight and it had some of the fans booing loudly.
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