Hearn doubts Kell Brook will be ready for Joshua-Whyte card on 12/12

By Boxing News - 11/05/2015 - Comments

brook5433By Scott Gilfoid: It’s looking like IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook won’t be ready by next month to fight Diego Chaves on the undercard of the Anthony Joshua vs. Dillian Whyte fight card on December 12th at the O2 Arena in London, UK. Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn would love to have the Brook-Chaves fight take place on the December 12th card because it would make it a slam dunk that the card would be worthy of putting on Sky Box Office.

However, Brook still has injured ribs, and the injury isn’t likely to be healed by next month. What Hearn obviously doesn’t want is to rush Brook back to the ring and have him fall apart against Chaves when he starts nailing the 29-year-old Brook with body shots to test his injured ribs.

“I don’t think [Brook] will be ready. I know everyone thought [the injury] was just a move to switch him from [Oct] 24th to the 12th, but honestly, it’s not,” Hearn said via IFL TV. “His rib’s still not right and we’re five weeks [out] from Saturday until Dec. 12, so it’s more likely January or February,” Hearn said.

Hearn can’t wait until the week of the fight to announce it to Sky that he thinks that Brook can fight on the card. Those guys obviously will want to know now whether Brook will be able to fight on December 12th.

It’s a risky thing if Brook does agree to fight on the card right now because if he pulls out at the short notice, then Sky Box Office will be stuck with a card that a lot of boxing fans won’t be interested in paying to see. Right now, the two top fights on the card is the Joshua-Whyte and Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan vs. Chris Eubank Jr. fight. So we’re basically talking about one fight, because the boxing fans aren’t too thrilled with the Eubank-O’Sullivan fight because it’s another mismatch with Eubank Jr. fighting a fringe contender instead of a top 5 guy. Eubank Jr. talks a lot, but then he turns around and fights fringe contenders and it’s very, very dull.

If the Brook vs. Chaves fight can’t take place on the Joshua vs. Whyte card, then the only fights that will be on the card is Eubank Jr-O’Sullivan, Tony Bellew, Kevin Mitchell and Luke Campbell. Those are all expected to be mismatches, as none of those last three fighters have opponents yet. We’re one month out, and Hearn still hasn’t found opponents for them. What does that tell you?

The Brook vs. Chaves fight was supposed to have taken place last month on October 24th at the Sheffield Arena in Sheffield, UK. Brook’s injury caused the fight on that date to be scrapped. With Brook not knowing when his ribs will be healed, he can’t reschedule for the time being. It’s all guesswork in trying to estimate when his ribs will be ready to go. He might not feel pain in his ribs, but he starts getting nailed in that area, he could re-injure the thing.



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