By Scott Gilfoid: In a fight that was a little more competitive than many boxing fans originally thought it would be, IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (34-0, 23 KOs) says unbeaten with a 4th round stoppage win over an over-matched #1 IBF Jo Jo Dan (34-3, 18 KOs) on Saturday night at the Motorpoint Arena, Sheffield, Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
Brook knocked Dan down four times in the fight with two knockdowns in the 2nd and two in the 4th. Jo Jo Dan was bleeding from his nose at the end of the 4th round, as he had been knocked down twice. He staggered back to his corner after the round ended.
The referee blew a call in the 2nd round when he gave Brook a knockdown when he grabbed Dan around the neck with one arm and held him in place for him to land a big right uppercut. It was a textbook case of holding and hitting. A blind man could have seen the illegal punch and ruled it as a non-knockdown, but the referee Earl Brown totally blew it by scoring it as a knockdown. I honestly don’t think that Jo Jo Dan ever recovered from that holding and hitting incident, because he was pretty shaken up by that shot. When you and hit someone, like Brook did, you can really hurt them, and it’s just really odd that the referee failed to call a clear foul on Brook.
Before anyone gets excited about Brook’s win over Jo Jo Dan, you have to realize that Dan was previously beaten twice by Selcuk Aydin. Those losses tells you everything that you need to know about Dan’s pedigree as a top fighter. I still don’t know why the International Boxing Federation had Jo Jo Dan ranked No.1 with their organization after his losses to Aydin. It just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. What makes even less sense is the IBF ranking Jo Jo Dan above arguably much better fighters like Tim Bradley, Amir Khan, Sadam Ali, Devon Alexander, Shawn Porter and Fredrick Lawson.
This was Brook’s first defense of his IBF 147 pound title. He looked slow, mechanical and flat-footed at times. Compared to the faster fighters at 147 like Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao, Brook looked very, very slow. He did show good punching power though, but his defense wasn’t very good at all. He was hit a lot by straight left hands to the head and to the body from Dan.
“If Amir Khan is watching, let’s give the fans what they want,” Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn said after the fight.
Hearn wants Khan to agree to fight Brook on June 13th in the UK. Brook also called out Khan. However, it’s extremely doubtful that Khan will accept the fight with Brook, because Khan is hanging on hoping to eventually get a big money fight against Mayweather or Pacquiao. Until then he gets a fight against one of those big stars, it’s highly unlikely that Khan will fight Brook. There’s really no reason for Khan to take the fight with Brook right now, because Brook doesn’t have a big name in America yet, and it’s better if Khan waits until Brook establishes himself as a big name, if he ever does. If Brook could become a big name in the U.S then a fight between Khan and Brook would be big in both the U.S and the UK, rather than the fight just being big in the UK like it would be now.
“What a heart. I caught him with some good clean shots and he [Jo Jo Dan] kept getting back up,” Brook said after the fight. “He’s never been stopped and he’s a legitimate World title contender that has never been stopped and I have just taken him out in style. You see little bits of greatness but much more to come from me and I will be back out in June in a massive fight. Amir Khan, Juan Manuel Marquez, Brandon Rios – those are the sort of names I want. Bring them on. I want to entertain the fans and want them to tell me who they want to see me fight – I think the answer is Amir Khan, and if he’s watching – let’s do it, come and fight me.”
Brook came across almost like he was pleading for a fight with Khan. There’s a right and a wrong way of asking a fighter for a fight, and I think Brook did it the wrong way tonight. He sounded too needy when he was calling Khan out, and it just struck me as very odd. If Brook wants the fight with Khan, he needs to earn it quietly rather than beating up a guy who was more of a 2nd tier tune-up opponent than a true No.1 IBF contender and then immediately asking for a fight against Khan.
From what I saw of Brook tonight, I think Khan would beat him with no problems. Brook is too slow and flat-footed to beat Khan in my view, and Brook is just too easy to hit. He was getting nailed tonight by Dan, who I don’t even rate as a 1st tier fighter. Dan had no problems nailing Brook with shots. If this was Khan, I think he would have pitched a total shutout in defeating Brook. It would have been an easy fight for Khan.
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In a much more interesting fight, middleweight Sergey Khomitsky (30-11-3, 12 KOs) blasted out British fighter Adam Etches (18-1, 15 KOs) by a 4th round single punch knockout. Khomitsky, who lost a very controversial 8 round to Britain’s Martin Murray two years ago in a fight that took place in the UK, decided he wasn’t going to let the fight go to the card. In the 4th round, Khomitsky landed a monstrous overhand right to the head of Etches that put him down flat on his back and totally out of it. The referee then quickly halted the fight at 1:35 of the round after seeing that Etches wasn’t going to be able to get back to his feet. Khomitsky then celebrated the knockout by jumping up and down while the crowd booed him loudly.
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Super bantamweight Gavin McDonnell (13-0-2, 4 KOs) slugged his way to a 12 round unanimous decision win over previously unbeaten Oleksander Yegorov (13-1-1, 6 KOs) to win the vacant European title. The final judges’ scores were 117-111, 118-110, 118-109.
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#5 IBF welterweight contender Frankie Gavin (22-1, 13 KOs) defeated Bogdan Mitic (20-7, 13 KOs) by a 10 round decision. The final score was 100-90.
Gavin is hoping to get a title shot against Kell Brook this year if possible. It would be a tragedy if Gavin’s win over the over-matched Mitic is the fight that earns him a title shot against Brook. I mean, you’d like to think that Gavin would have to beat someone a little better than Mitic to earn a title shot, because this was just too easy and too one-sided of a fight. It would be nice for Gavin to at least prove that he can avenge his loss to 40-year-old Leonard Bundu from last year. That’s a fight that is going to linger on and on until Gavin does something to redeem himself. Gavin hasn’t fought anyone good since that fight, as he’s beaten Mate Hornyak, Bradley Skeete and now Mitic since the Bundu fight.
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Other boxing results on the card:
Khalid Yafai pts 8 Cristofer Rosales
Jordan Gill pts 6 Barrington Brown
Stephen Smith pts 6 Jacek Wylezol
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