Kell Brook says he might fight 43-year-old Mosley if he keeps talking

By Boxing News - 09/03/2015 - Comments

brook54566By Scott Gilfoid: It looks like we may soon be seeing a nice little mismatch between IBF welterweight champion Kell “The Special One” Brook (35-0, 24 KOs) if Brook can get past the hard hitting No.4 IBF contender Diego Chaves (23-2-1, 19 KOs) on October 24th at the Sheffield Arena, Sheffield, UK.

Brook is starting to show interest in facing the soon to be 44-year-old Shane Mosley (48-9-1, 40 KOs) in a match. Mosley turns 44 four days from now on September 7th. Mosley recently took to Twitter following his win over 41-year-old relic from the past Ricardo Mayorga, saying “Either [Juan Manuel] Marquez or I would like to fight Special K Brook and snatch the belt from him.”

Rather than ignoring Mosley and focusing on trying to face some better opposition for a change, Brook said that if Mosley keeps talking about fighting him then the fight could happen. However, without a top 15 ranking with the International Boxing Federation, I’m not too sure how a fight between Brook and Mosley can happen. I suppose Brook can wait until Mosley gets a top 15 ranking and then give him a fight, but I thought Brook was supposed to be raising the level of his opposition?

“If he [Mosley] carries on shouting his mouth off, be careful what you wish for because it could happen,” Brook said to skysports.com. “And you know I was a fan of his, but if he carries on, I might have to hurt him a bit.”

I wonder how the British boxing public would take to a fight between Brook and Mosley? Sadly, I think it would probably do well. But if Brook is going to be taking on the old timers like Brook, then he should also not leave out the 41-year-old Ricardo Mayorga and maybe Pernell Whitaker. I think it’s a waste of time myself. I mean, if Brook is trying to get a fight against the likes of Amir Khan by proving himself against the best in the welterweight division, then I think Brook would be taking a monstrous backwards step to be fighting Mosley.

If Brook hadn’t been fighting fodder opposition for most of his 11-year pro career, then I think it wouldn’t hurt for him to one day fight Mosley if the aging fighter ever achieves a top 15 ranking with the IBF. But the fact of the matter is, Brook hasn’t been facing the quality guys during his career. He’s been fighting the likes of Jo Jo Dan, Frankie Gavin, Carson Jones, Matthew Hatton, Lovemore N’Dou, Alvaro Robles, Vyacheslav Senchenko, Hector David Saldivia, Luis Galarza, Rafal Jackiewicz, Philip Kotey, Michael Jennings, and Krzysztof Bienias. Those are the guys that Brook has been fighting in the last 5 years of his career. He did fight Shawn Porter, but that was the only name guy that he’s fought during his 11 year pro career.

I don’t see any point in Brook going back to fighting the lesser guys by taking on 44-year-old Mosley to give him a world title shot. How does the IBF even let that happen?

“Shane is a legend to me. He has come from lightweight, been in with some massive names, De La Hoya, but he is getting on now,” Brook said. “He is a legend. He has had a great legacy in the sport and he is coming back, but for me, I don’t think he should come back.”

Mosley is a definitely a far better fighter than Brook in terms of what he’s done with his career compared to him. If Brook can move up and win a world title at junior middleweight and middleweight, then he’d match what Mosley did in winning titles in three different weight classes. But there would still be a huge difference between the levels of opposition that the two fighters have faced.

By the time Mosley was 29-years-old, which is the age Brook is at right now, he’d already fought guys like Oscar De La Hoya, Jesse James Leija, John John Molina and Philip Holiday. The only guy Brook has fought is Porter, and he clinched him all night to get a win. That’s not how Mosley fought during his prime. He actually fought his opposition tooth and nail and beat them in wars without clinging to them to keep them from getting their shots off.



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