By Scott Gilfoid: Boxing fans are hoping that IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (34-0, 23 KOs) will finally step it up a level after he gets his voluntary title defense against #5 IBF Frankie Gavin (22-1, 13 KOs) out of the way on May 30th at the O2 Arena in London, UK. Fans want to see the 28-year-old Brook fight someone along the lines of Keith Thurman or Marcos Maidana in order to see if Brook even rates to be a belt holder in the 147 pound division, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Brook is talking about him possibly fighting Top Rank fighter Brandon Rios (33-2-1, 24 KOs) or 42-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez (56-7-1, 40 KOs) in the summer.
You can forget about Marquez facing Brook because I don’t see that happening. Marquez has had a knee problem since his fight against Mike Alvarado last year in May, and I don’t expect him to be ready to fight for a world title by the summer.
I think it’s going to be Rios all the way if it’s a fight that Top Rank and Rios both want. That remains to be seen because Bob Arum of Top Rank might prefer to match Rios against Tim Bradley rather than put him in with someone outside of his Top Rank stable.
“Them [Rios and Marquez] will be coming after this [Gavin], but obviously you have to promote them a bit more and there’s a bit more behind them,” Rios said via Boxtalk. “With this…we’re in the same promotional company and it’s a fight that got made easy enough and here we are.”
I don’t know what the attraction is in Brook facing a guy like Rios. That’s not a big fight, yet Brook sees it as a big fight. Rios is just some guy who has been schooled by Manny Pacquiao, beaten by Mike Alvarado, and been given controversial wins over Diego Chaves and Richard Abril. Rios should have four defeats on his resume right now, and I don’t see him as guy potentially good enough to win a world title at 147. To be sure, Rios was a good fighter when he was able to melt down to 135 in fighting in the lightweight division, but he can’t make that weight any longer, and he probably can’t even make 140 either.
Rios is fighting at welterweight now, and he doesn’t match up well against the top champions Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Jr, Keith Thurman and Brook. But maybe that’s why Brook wants the fight against Rios. I mean, if Brook feels he can beat Rios, then it would make sense for him to be pushing for the fight in a major way. I did notice that Brook isn’t pushing for a fight against Thurman or Marcos Maidana, and that tells me that there’s some serious self-doubt going on when it comes to Brook thinking about fighting those two guys.
I’m pretty sure that Maidana and Thurman are both held in a higher regard by boxing fans right now than Rios is. I could be wrong, but I do think that Maidana and Thurman are seen by fans as better fighters than Rios. That’s why I’m kind of confused as to why Brook wants to fight Rios rather than Thurman or Maidana.
We just saw Brook in a mismatch against Jo Jo Dan, and now we’re seeing Brook in another mismatch in him facing Frankie Gavin on May 30th. Why would Brook want to have yet another mismatch with him fighting Rios rather than someone who has the type of talent to beat him and possibly beat him by a knockout? But I may have answered by own question by bringing that up, because why would Brook want to fight a guy that could beat him when he has someone like Rios to fight that he probably knows full well he can beat.
All I can say about Brook wanting to fight Rios or Marquez is that Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn is going to need to make it worthwhile for those guys in terms of cash if he wants to lure one of them into taking the fight with Brook. Like I said, I don’t see Marquez taking the fight with Brook. No way do I see that fight happening. But Rios is definitely a possibility for Brook.
Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn seems to talk a lot about Brook facing Rios, and it makes me wonder if Hearn is aware of how Rios is perceived by a lot of boxing fans in the United States. Hearn lives in the UK obviously, and he might be aware of how Rios’ career has kind of sunk since his loss to Pacquiao. Rios is not particularly popular, and he seems to have made a career out of fighting Mike Alvarado. When you take Rios out of the Alvarado fights, he does poorly much of the time in his other fights against guys like Chaves, Abril and Pacquiao. I think Rios would lose to Abril and Chaves if he were to fight them again, not that Arum will let those guys get another crack at Rios. They proved to be more than a handful the first time around.
If Hearn wants to build up Brook’s popularity in the United States then he needs to match him against Maidana and Thurman. I know Hearn and Brook want to fight Amir Khan, but he’s not going to fight Brook because he doesn’t see him as taking on the kind of opponents that he needs to be taking in order for him to increase his popularity with the American fans. In other words, Khan doesn’t want to waste his time fighting a belt holder who is facing guys like Gavin and Jo Jo Dan rather than dangerous fighters like Keith Thurman and Maidana. Brook doesn’t help himself by not taking the fights that he needs to be taking to get the bigger fights.
Brook just won’t let go of the idea of him fighting Khan, but he’s going about getting the fight in a backwards way by fighting little known guys or fighters that have been exposed again and again at the upper level of the sport.
“It’s very frustrating,” Brook said to BoxTalk about him not being able to get a fight against Khan. “I’m all about the fans. I’m all about making the fight [against Khan] happen now. He’s saying when the times right. The times right now in my eyes. Pacquiao and Mayweather are fighting each other. They’ll probably be fighting each other again. He’s jumping the queue as it is. I’m the world champion. I’m willing to fight the guy. I don’t see what the problem is. All he has to do is pick up the phone. We can sort it out and make the fight happen. He’s coming out with every excuse in the book with me. It’s an ongoing thing. He’s been saying he’ll fight me if I fight certain guys and I’ve come through everything. I don’t even know why he has a say in it. I’m the champion. He’s been knocked out I don’t know how many times. I just want to make the fight happen for the fans. The reason I think he’s got the profile name. Amir Khan is a big name. He wants to go straight to the Manny Pacquiao – Mayweather winner. Everyone expects him to lose that fight, and he can then come down and fight me and get that other bag of dough. He knows if he fights me first, he’s going to get put to sleep and there’s no fight for him afterwards.”
I think what Brook doesn’t understand is that it doesn’t matter if you’re a champion or not in the boxing world. It doesn’t matter at all. The sanctioning bodies have kind of ruined the whole concept of fighters being respected due to them holding world titles by watering down each division with the multiple titles in each weight class. In the old days there was only one world title in each weight class, but now there are five world champions for each weight. Six if you count the interim straps. With that many potential world champions holding belts in each division, it really doesn’t matter anymore if a fighter is a champion or not. Now it’s more about who is exciting to watch and who is a great entertainer. The belts have become paper belts and are pretty much obsolete. They’re more like costume jewelry that fighters wear when they come out in the ring before their fights than it being something that means anything to the boxing fans. What counts now with the fans is unbeaten records and past opponents. In other words, fans want to see fighters with unmarred records and they want to see them with a history of facing top fighters. If they don’t have either of those, then they’re kind of out of luck. Some guys can make up for it by being super charismatic with a lot of trash talking and showmanship. With Brook, he pretty much only has the unbeaten record going for him. He’s not charismatic in my view, he hasn’t faced the high quality opposition that boxing fans like to see, and he’s not a good trash talker.
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