By Scott Gilfoid: Amir Khan (30-3, 19 KOs) still doesn’t have an opponent picked out for his next fight on May 30th, but Eddie Hearn, the promoter for IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook, believes it’s going to be the recently defeated Chris Algieri.
Hearn doesn’t believe it’s going to be the likes of Miguel Cotto, Keith Thurman or Andrien Broner, three of the names that has been mentioned as potential opponents for Khan, according to Fightnews.com. Hearn would like nothing better than to see Khan fight Brook on June 13th at Wembley Stadium in London, UK, but Khan says that’s a date that won’t work for him due to Ramadan.
It’s unclear why Hearn chose a date that conflicts with Ramadan, because that makes it easy for Khan to dismiss the fight.
“I don’t think Amir Khan will fight any of the names mentioned apart from maybe Chris Algieri,” Hearn said via Sky Sports News HQ. “I can’t wait for Kell Brook to knock him out…Kell is golden and Amir is struggling to find an opponent. Whatever opponent he’ll choose on May 30 isn’t going to be Kell Brook and that’s not what the public want. People will be disappointed with the opponent.”
I think the interest in a Khan-Brook fight is mainly from the UK side. It’s not a fight that is in demand in the United States and elsewhere. Khan can make much more money fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Manny Pacquiao, so you can’t blame Khan for wanting to seek out the bigger fights.
Fighting Brook would be a local thing rather than a worldwide type of fight. Other than the UK, fans are not calling for a Khan vs. Brook fight. In the U.S, neither of the guys are well-known at all. If you casual boxing fan who Kell Brook and Amir Khan is in the United States, chances are good that they’ve never heard of either of them.
It takes a long time to become known in the U.S, and you can’t do it on the cheap by fighting guys like Jo Jo Dan, Shawn Porter, Luis Collazo, little 5’5” Carlos Molina, Julio Diaz or Devon Alexander. The only way of getting known in the U.S is to take on the dangerous guys like Lucas Matthysse, Marcos Maidana, Danny Garcia, Mayweather, Pacquiao and Keith Thurman. Thus far, Khan and Brook haven’t fought those guys so it’s not surprising that there isn’t a demand for a Khan vs. Brook fight.
“We’d love to fight Khan now. June 13 at Wembley is there for him but there’s no real interest from Khan in the fight,” Hearn said.
Hearn is starting to sound needy. He really needs to move on and stop bleating on about the Brook-Khan fight. I think it’s painfully obvious that Khan doesn’t want that fight, so Brook and Hearn need to move on and start facing some quality guys. They need to forget about wanting to fight 42-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez or Brandon Rios. That’s not the right direction to go if you want to make it big in the U.S. That would be a good direction to take five years ago before Rios was getting beaten left and right and winning controversial decisions.
It would have been a good move to fight Marquez five years ago while he still had something left in the tank, but definitely not how. Marquez hasn’t fought in a year, and he has a knee problem that has persisted since his last fight against Mike Alvarado. If Hearn is serious about wanting to make Brook into a big name in the U.S, then he needs to match him against Thurman, Matthysse, Danny Garcia, or Maidana. He’s obviously not going to get Khan, Mayweather or Pacquiao.
Comments are closed.