Khan v Brook on course for June

By Boxing News - 01/04/2016 - Comments

brook9By Matt Plumridge: The eagerly anticipated – and some say long overdue – matchup between “Special K” Kell Brook (35-0) and Amir “King” Khan (31-3) for Brooks’ IBF Welterweight title has been penciled in for the 4th June at Wembley Stadium, London.

Brooks’ promoter Eddie Hearn has confirmed that he has both booked the venue and invited Khan’s management team back to the table for negotiations. Both fighters would stand to pocket a minimum of £3million each ($5 million) in what would be a potential 80,000 sell out, a box office hit in the UK and of reasonable interest on the world stage.

Neither fighter has ever gotten on well with the other – so that ill feeling hype, plus the fact that both look well matched, makes for the type of fight that will have boxing fans prepared to shell out their hard earned cash to see whether Khan or Kell will get the KO.

While some may think that Khan doesn’t fancy it – Hearn having previously tabled a £5m bid that was rebuffed – the stars have aligned to the point where Khan has almost no option but to take this fight. He no longer has the Mayweather fight open to him, Pacquiao has spurned his advances again and all other viable Welterweight options (think Porter, Garcia, Thurman) only provide Khan with a stiff test of his talents, yet without the big pay day to balance the sizable risk. Khan knows that with his record – 2 defeats by KO and 3 in total – a mega money option such as Brook won’t exist in the event he suffers another loss. This also explains why he has chosen to remain relatively inactive (4 fights in 3 years) in pursuit of one of the top champions and in turn, a fat cheque, given he could face a career ending defeat of the back of it.

Furthermore Brook has been pushing like crazy for a shot at Khan. He is super confident of victory and knows that Khan can unlock a career high payday and even greater opportunity in the future, plus an enhancement of reputation. Although Brook is due to fight a mandatory in March, it would be easy to see a postponement in advance of the above, given what would be at stake.

As for my money, I had always thought that Brook would be too strong for Khan, but in fairness to Khan he has looked pretty good against reasonable opposition in his last three fights. However he has yet to KO an opponent at this weight and on that basis, I could not imagine Brook going a whole night without getting through with at least one power shot with enough heft to put Khan down and out.



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