By Scott Gilfoid: Once again, Amir Khan has slammed the door in the face of IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook as far as a potential fight against him. On Wednesday, Khan said for the umpteenth time that he wants American superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr. for a fight, not Brook, who still sees as an unproven fighter given the level of opposition that his various promoters has put him in with during his long 11-year pro career.
Khan says he’s closer than he ever has been in getting a fight against the talented Mayweather for September, and he doesn’t want to waste his time fighting a guy who doesn’t have the same kind of name value.
Khan has a good point in talking about Brook’s lack of quality opposition he’s faced. Brook really hasn’t faced the big names yet. All you need to do is look at the last five opponents that Brook has faced to give you a good idea about what Khan is talking about. I mean, look at the guys that Brook has faced: Frankie Gavin, Jo Jo Dan, Alvaro Robles, Shawn Porter and Vyachyeslav Senchenko. Khan hasn’t done much better in his last five fights, but there was a brief amount of time where Khan was facing quality guys in 2010 and 2012, and obviously Khan fell apart in losing to Lamont Peterson and Danny Garcia. With Brook, he’d only fought one B level fighter in Porter, and the rest of the guys have been pretty much all C and D-level fighters.
The fight I want is the Mayweather fight, and this is the closest we’ve ever got to it now,” Khan said via Talksport.com. “He [Brook] really needs to prove himself by fighting the big names. He’s had an easy run. Holding the world title is one thing, but taking on fights you know you’re going to win…he’s fooling the public, I think.”
I’m not sure what the problem is with Brook and his promoter Eddie Hearn. Brook should have been stepped up against the best five years ago against guys like Marcos Maidana, Keith Thurman, Tim Bradley, Diego Chaves, Danny Garcia, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Lucas Matthysse, Ruslan Provodnikov and Robert Guerrero. Instead of facing those guys, Brook has been put in a giant stall in match-up with guys that basically had no chance of beating him. The only guy that had a chance of beating Brook all these years was Porter, who I felt did enough to deserve a decision. Along the way, Brook almost lose to Carson Jones, a B-level fighter in 2012. Many boxing fans felt that Jones did enough to defeat Brook in their first fight.
Brook is taking on what he feels is a high quality opponent in Brandon Rios in his next fight in August. The fight isn’t confirmed yet, but there’s a possibility it could take place. I don’t see this as an A-level opponent for Brook, but it’s definitely a level or two above the guys that Brook has been facing apart from the Porter fight, which I felt Brook lost. Khan also said he thought Brook lost the fight to Porter.
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