Khan: Kell Brook needs to fight guys like Keith Thurman

By Boxing News - 03/29/2015 - Comments

SHEFFIELD-BROOK-DANN14(Photo Credit: Lawrence Lustig) By Scott Gilfoid: Amir Khan was unimpressed with IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook’s 4th round stoppage win over Jo Jo Dan last Saturday night at the Motorpoint Arena in Sheffield, UK. Khan says that Brook is making a big deal out of fighting a fighter that he considers little more than a C-class fighter in Jo Jo Dan.

Khan says that if Brook wants to impress the boxing fans and accomplish something, he needs to start fighting the world class type opposition like WBA welterweight champion Keith Thurman.

Until then, Khan says that Brook is just cherry picking opposition that are beatable. Khan says he’s going in a different direction than Brook right now with him looking to get a fight against the likes of Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao.

“I can’t do June due to Ramadan. Maybe that’s why he [Brook] called me out because I can’t do June,” Khan said via Fighthype. “He’s going like Jo Jo Dan was a 5-time world champion. Jo Jo Dan was a tune-up fight for him. He’s coming back against a class-C opponent. He needs to fight the world class fighters, the likes of [Keith] Thurman. You got big names in the welterweight division, but he’s [Brook] picking and choosing who he wants to fight.”

I hate to say it, but Khan does make a good point in saying that the Brook vs. Jo Jo Dan fight was little more than a tune-up fight for Brook. Eddie Hearn, the promoter for Brook, is going on as if Brook actually beat a top tier fighter instead of a guy with an inflated ranking in #1 IBF Dan.

There’s big difference between fighting guys like Jo Jo Dan and fighting Keith Thurman. The fact that Hearn isn’t matching Brook up against Thurman kind of tells you a little bit about the strategy behind the match-making being done with Brook. He’s not taking the dangerous guys, and his only tough fight of his career against Shawn Porter was inconclusive.

Brook held all night long against Porter, and the fight was more of a draw in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans than an actual win for Brook. I personally had Porter winning the fight due to him landing more shots, and being the busier fighter of the two. Brook clinched too much and looked like he was trying to stall out the fight.

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“A fight between me and him won’t happen until the end of the year, or maybe next year,” Khan said. “I’m taking a different route. My route is to fight the big names like Manny Pacquiao, Mayweather, and be amongst those names. No one in America knows who Kell Brook is; whereas I can’t walk the street now. Obviously when it does happen, it’s going to happen when Amir Khan says,” Khan said.

Khan isn’t much better with the soft match-making he’s been doing for the last three years. Since Khan was knocked out by Danny Garcia in 2012, Khan has fought Carlos Molina, Julio Diaz, Luis Collazo, and Devon Alexander.

Khan won a controversial decision against Diaz. Khan isn’t fighting the world class guys, and there’s talk that he could fight Chris Algieri next. Algieri is a light-hitting 140 pound fighter, who was beaten badly by Manny Pacquiao last November.

Hearn mentioned that if he can’t get a fight between Brook and Khan next, then he’ll look to match Brook against likes of Brandon Rios or Juan Manuel Marquez. In other words, those are safe fights for Brook, because neither of those fighters are true welterweights.

Marquez is an old 41-year-old pumped up featherweight, who has been dealing with a knee problem for a year now since his fight against Mike Alvarado in May of 2014. Rios is a former WBA lightweight champion who was recently schooled by Pacquiao, and who was bailed out of a fight against Diego Chaves in the 9th round when the referee disqualified Chaves for throwing an elbow that no one saw him throw. Rios would have lost the fight to Chaves if the fight had gone the full 10 round distance.

Brook needs to step it up against better fighters so that he can make it more interesting for Khan to want to fight him. Beating Jo Jo Dan and Porter aren’t big enough wins for Brook to get the fight against Khan.



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