By Scott Gilfoid: Having been rebuffed by Amir Khan in his chronic attempts at getting a fight against him, IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (34-0, 23 KOs) will be settling for facing one of his promoter Eddie Hearn’s stable fighters Frankie Gavin (22-1, 13 KOs) on May 30th in a fight that has failed to interest the boxing public.
What’s interesting here is that Brook feels that a win over Gavin will put him in position to face the winner of the May 2nd fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao.
Brook thinks that because he’s the IBF 147 pound champion by virtue of his close and controversial win over Shawn Porter last year, Mayweather or Pacquiao should want to fight him next in order to go after his IBF title. Brook thinks they’ll want his IBF title because they’re into collecting the straps.
“They’ve got enough money, so it’s not about money for them, it’s about legacy now,” Brook said via the mirror.co.uk. “I’ve got a welterweight world title, Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather have the rest. They’ll want to sail into the sunset with all the belts, I’m available for a unification fight, so absolutely there’s a chance of me fighting the winner. It’s a short-lived career and you want to fight the best in the world.”
I really don’t think the Mayweather-Pacquiao winner are going to be all that broken up about them not having Brook’s IBF trinket. I mean, it’s not a fight that the boxing public is demanding in the United States, as Brook is an unknown there even though Showtime has recently started televising his mismatches. They showed the horrible Brook vs. Jo Jo Dan fight, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they now regret it. But not surprisingly, Showtime won’t be televising Brook’s mismatch against Gavin, and neither is any other U.S television network. As such, no one will see the fight and Brook is going to stay an unknown to a lot of boxing fans in the United States.
I hate to say it but I think Brook’s chances of getting a shot at the winner or even the loser of the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight are pretty much less than zero. I think it’s safe to say that Brook isn’t getting the Khan fight and now he’s not getting the Mayweather or Pacquiao. I just hope that Brook doesn’t start calling Mayweather and Pacquiao out 24/7 like he’s been doing with Khan for the past couple of years, because it would look real bad with him bleating for a fight.
You want Brook have his dignity with the boxing public and not be seeing asking for a big money fight over and over again against the likes of Mayweather and Pacquiao.
Brook needs to focus on trying to fight the guys that he actually has a chance of fighting. Since he’s starting from ground one with a background in facing C-level fighters pretty much his entire 10-year pro career with the exception of his controversial win over B-level fighter Shawn Porter, Brook needs to step it up against some good B-level guys like Keith Thurman, Marcos Maidana, Danny Garcia, Lamont Peterson or Lucas Matthysse. But that doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen. Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn is interested in matching him against Brandon Rios later this year instead of the above mentioned fighters.
With that kind of match-making being done for Brook over and over again, is it any wonder why he’s not getting fights against the likes of Mayweather, Pacquiao and Khan? In Brook’s last five fights, he’s faced Jo Jo Dan, Shawn Porter, Alvaro Robles, Vyacheslav Senchenko and Carson Jones. I’m sorry, but those are not the type of fighters that you face in order to get a shot against the bigger names like Mayweather and Pacquiao. Those are the type of fighters you face in order to get fights against Maidana, Thurman, Garcia, Peterson and Matthysse. If you decide you want to skip those names in order to go to the next level, then I’m afraid you’re going to be sitting for an awfully long time waiting for fights that will never materialize.
I don’t know who Hearn will be looking to match Brook up with after he puts him in with Rios. I’ve heard Hearn mention Andre Berto’s name in the past as a potential opponent. That kind of tells you the direction that Hearn has for Brook.
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