Brook: I’m ready for Rios or Mayweather on September 12th

By Boxing News - 06/27/2015 - Comments

brook65By Scott Gilfoid: Fresh off his win over fellow Matchroom Sport stablemate Frankie Gavin, IBF 147lb belt holder Kell Brook (35-0, 24 KOs) appears to be resigned to the reality that he’ll be facing #4 WBO, #6 WBC Brandon Rios (33-2-1, 24 KOs) on September 12th at the O2 Arena in London, UK.

Brook is still waiting to hear from Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs), who has yet to name his opponent for 9/12 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Brook and his promoter Eddie Hearn aren’t likely to put the ink on the contract for the Rios fight until they hear Mayweather make his choice, because if he does have intentions of fighting Brook, he might not make it known for many weeks now.

Mayweather is so popular that he doesn’t need to have a lot of time to market his fights. He could literally wait two weeks before his fight on September 12th before naming his opponent, and the fight would still bring in huge pay-per-view numbers, and would still sellout the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

“I’d love to take the task of beating Floyd Mayweather. I’m going to be ready for September 12 whether it’s Rios or Mayweather,” Brook said to Skysports.com. “If I were him [Mayweather], I’d keep well away from me. I am hungry and I want to take that zero and turn it in to a one.”

Yeah, I’m sure Mayweather is staying up and night unable to sleep being worried about a fight against the still unproven Brook. Let’s be serious; Brook hasn’t beaten anyone in his career that would make Mayweather worried about fighting him. The only thing Mayweather would be worried about is the sudden loss of pay-per-view buys if he were to select Brook as his next opponent.

Mayweather vs. Brook wouldn’t sell in the U.S, and it would be a fight that would likely bring in the lowest PPV numbers for Mayweather in many years. It’s not that Brook isn’t a decent scraper, but he’s just not known to the American public.

There’s no way Mayweather is going to waste his final fight facing a guy can’t bring in the cash in the U.S. Brook looked terrible in his clinching performance against Shawn Porter last year. Brook, with his nonstop clinching, was the one that created the clinching blueprint for Adrien Broner to follow in his fight against Porter.

Broner was likely hoping that the referee would just stand around like a bump on a log doing nothing while he clinched all night long like Brook did against Porter. Unfortunately for Broner, the referee working the fight, Tony Weeks, did his job in docking Broner a point for his excessive holding. He obviously should have taken off more than a point, but he at least took off one point.

“People would really be excited about that fight [Brook vs. Mayweather],” Brook said. “There’s me and Keith Thurman that can cause Mayweather problems.”
The UK fans would be excited at seeing Brook face Mayweather, but the American fans would be bored by the match-up, and would likely choose not to purchase it on PPV. However, there wouldn’t be enough UK PPV money to offset the loss of American PPV buys, and this would result in Mayweather winding up with less cash than he’d get if he chose someone that the casual boxing fans in America have heard about like Andre Berto.

I think Rios is going to beat Brook on September 12th, and beat him bad by scoring a knockout after possibly breaking his nose the way that Carson Jones did. Rios hits very hard, and he’s an excellent pressure fighter. He won’t be stopped by Brook’s clinching, because he’ll have worked really hard in training camp learning how to negate Brook’s holding tactics. That means Brook will actually have to fight Rios rather than hold him all night, and I don’t think Brook will be able to stand up to Rios’ power and pressure.



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