By Scott Gilfoid: Despite IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (35-0, 24 KOs) now scheduled to fight #4 IBF contender Diego Chaves (23-2-1, 19 KOs) at some point in the near future, Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) still feels that the 29-year-old Brook needs to prove himself against top fighters before he’ll agree to fight him.
It seems that Khan doesn’t rate Chaves as being a big name, and you can’t disagree with that. Chaves isn’t a big name, and a fight against him likely won’t do a whole heck of a lot in building up a future Khan-Brook fight.
Khan already said that before he agrees to fight Brook, he needs to start fighting the big names and prove that he can beat them. But instead of the big names, we’re seeing Brook fight guys like Jo Jo Dan, Frankie Gavin and now Chaves. I think Brook and his promoter Eddie Hearn are reluctant to take any risky fights where Brook could potentially lose or struggle and look bad.
“My body’s taken all the wear and tear where I’m fighting the best fighters in the world and he’s not even fighting half of them,” said Khan to BBC.com. “I want him [Brook] to prove himself so it’s a big fight, we go into the ring 50-50 and it’s a massive fight not only for Great Britain but around the world.”
I’m surprised Khan is willing to give Brook a 50-50 deal, because you would think that Khan is still the more popular fighter in the UK right now.
In the past, Khan said he wanted to see Brook prove himself against two or three top fighters. Brook is currently injured with a rib injury, and he likely won’t be fighting until early 2016. He’s hoping to fight in December, but I doubt we’ll see that. If Brook can get past Chaves, then his best bet is to try and have Hearn set him up with a unification fight against WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley.
I can see the negotiations going nowhere if Hearn starts talking rematch clauses like with Brandon Rios. Bradley probably won’t want to get stuck fighting a guy like Brook over and over again, because he’s not well-known to the casual boxing fans in the U.S.
You certainly can’t sell Bradley-Brook on PPV in the U.S, because it would be lucky to do even a tiny amount of buys. But if Hearn is smart, he’ll try and match Brook against Bradley, Brandon Rios, Shawn Porter and then Keith Thurman. If Brook is still unbeaten once he gets through all those fights, then I figure that Khan will be ready to face him at that point.
There would still be guys like Errol Spence and Danny Garcia for Brook to prove himself against, but I think Khan would be satisfied with Brook beating Bradley, Rios, Porter and Thurman. Unfortunately, I don’t see Brook beating all those guys. I think Thurman, Porter and Bradley likely beat him.
Rios would really punish Brook in a grueling fight, but I think Brook would win that one. Spence would beat Brook fairly easily in my view, even with Brook trying to clinch all night long like he did in his fight against Porter. He’s not going to beat an Olympian like Spence by clinching and hoping the judges will give him a narrow win.
I don’t see Brook and Hearn fighting any of those guys. I think he’s going to continue fighting the Frankie Gavin types and every once in a while slip in someone like Chaves, who has a record of 1-2-1 in his last four fights. Great record, eh?
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