By Scott Gilfoid: IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (35-0, 24 KO) says he wants to go after Floyd Mayweather Jr’s 49-0 record and surpass it by going 50-0 or better before he’s done with his career. With his passed record of mostly fluff opponents, the 29-year-old Brook is only 14 wins away from equaling Mayweather’s 49-0 record.
With the way that Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn is matching him, I think it’s quite possible for Brook to equal and break the record. It’s not as if Brook is being matched up against quality opposition.
He’s fighting on October 24th against Diego Chaves (23-2-1, 19 KOs), a fighter with a record of 1-2-1 in his last four fights. Brook also thinks he can take Mayweather’s place as the sport’s next mega-star. I hope Brook doesn’t hold his breath waiting for that to happen because I don’t see it becoming a reality. Brook is getting up there in age, and he’s already wasted 11 years of his career fighting fluff opposition.
To become a mega-star, you need to fight quality opponents for a long, long time and look great in beating them. Brook has fought poor opposition for a long, long time, and not looked nearly good enough to be seen as a mega-star. Besides that, you need the personality to become a mega star. You need charisma. While I think Brook is a nice chap, I don’t see him having much of a personality or the charisma that is needed for him to become a star. I mean, Brook would need to change his whole attitude for him to become a mega-star, and he would have to fight much different fighters from this point on. An image maker could definitely help Brook, but it would take a huge effort for him to stay in character to become that person. He would need the clothes, the voice and the right words to come out of his mouth at all times. I just don’t see it happening.
“His [Mayweather] 49-0 record is incredible and he leaves a phenomenal legacy behind, but I believe I can reach that pinnacle and go past it,” Brook said.
Brook has arguably fought only one quality opponent in his career in him beating Shawn Porter last year in a fight that was very, very close and could have gone either way. I had Porter winning the fight by a 10 rounds to 2 score. I couldn’t give Brook more than two rounds because of all the holding he was doing in each round.
Brook used the punch and grab technique to keep Porter from throwing punches. With the referee doing nothing to stop Brook from stinking up the fight, Porter was on his own in the ring. At the time, Porter didn’t know how to deal with fighters that clinch nonstop 10+ times per round, but he’s since learned how to keep throwing punches even when a fighter is holding onto him for dear life to keep from getting worked over on the inside.
Hearn can definitely keep Brook unbeaten for another 15 fights if he keeps matching him up against the sorrowful opposition he’s been feeding him.
Here are the last 10 opponents for Brook:
Frankie Gavin
Jo Jo Dan
Shawn Porter
Alvaro Robles
Vyacheslav Senchenko
Carson Jones
Hector David Saldivia
Carson Jones
Matthew Hatton
Luis Galarza
You could understand that kind of match-making if Brook was in his early 20s, but he’s not. Brook is 29-years-old and will be turning 30 in just eight months. Brook is being matched like someone 22-years-old, not someone about to turn 30. The kind of match-making that is being done for Brook will easily let him get to 50-0.
Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if Brook makes it to 60-0 with the match-making that Hearn is doing for him. All Hearn needs to do is dig up fighters like Chris Algieri, Kevin Bizier, Rico Muller, Devon Alexander, Chris Van Heerden, Jeff Horn, Jo Jo Dan and Frankie Gavin and he’ll be fine. It’s too bad Matthew Hatton is retired, because I bet he’d be in the running for another fight against Brook.
“Floyd’s last fight on Saturday means that the door is open for someone to become boxing’s new mega-star – and I want to be that man,” Brook said.
Brook will need an image maker for him to try and become someone that the boxing public can identify with in terms of his personality and look to become a star. But even if Brook accomplishes that, he’ll still need Hearn to start matching him against quality opposition, and I don’t see Hearn doing that. The thing is if Hearn stops with the soft match-making, Brook will likely lose over and over again. If you put Brook in with the likes of Spence, Danny Garcia and Keith Thurman, he’s going to lose in my view. I think even Amir Khan would beat Brook.
Comments are closed.