By Scott Gilfoid: After recently making a fruitless attempt to setup a big stadium fight against IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook, Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) abandoned the efforts and chose instead to challenge WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) on May 7 on HBO pay-per-view in a fight that will be staged in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Khan says that he believes that Canelo is twice as good as the 29-year-old Brook, who he says turned down a big money offer from him. Khan says he made a big money offer, but Brook turned it down.
It was Brook’s rejection of his offer that led to Khan to look in another direction towards the Canelo fight, and surprisingly he was able to get it straightaway. There was a bit of disagreement about the weight for the fight, as Khan reportedly wanted it to take place at 154 and Canelo wanted it at 155 so that he could defend his WBC middleweight title with the fight.
“I’m going in with someone who is probably twice as good as Kell, so it shows something about me. I’m going to prove to the world how good I am,” Khan said to thesun.co.uk via the bleacherreport.com. “Kell and his team have their own path. I was offering him a lot of money to fight me, but he didn’t want to take that. I don’t think the fight will happen. But listen, I wish him all the very best.”
It’s too bad Brook didn’t accept the offer given to him by Khan, because his options for big money fights are pretty slim at this point unless he wants to try and get a fight against a middleweight like Gennady Golovkin. I don’t think Brook will make much money fighting the likes of Danny Garcia, Tim Bradley, Shawn Porter or Keith Thurman.
Heck, I don’t think those fights will even happen. I have doubts how willing Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn is to put Brook in with someone that can give him his first loss of his career. If you look at the guys that Brook has been facing during his long 12-year pro career, he’s generally been put in with weak opposition.
Brook kind of reminds me of a welterweight version of heavyweight Brian Nielsen (64-3, 43 KOs). For those who may not be aware of who Nielsen is, he was a heavyweight that had a superb record of mostly all wins, but the victories were largely against weak fodder opponents. If Brook’s resume, it’s pretty much the same type of gawd awful opposition that Nielsen fought. That’s why I don’t see Hearn bothering to put Brook in with anyone good that could potentially ruin his unbeaten record.
Brook has a good thing fighting at the Sheffield Arena, making nice paydays without any risk at all against the likes of Frankie Gavin, Alvaro Robles, Jo Jo Dan, Kevin Bizier, Vyacheslav Senchenko, Michael Jennings, Carson Jones, Matthew Hatton, Hector David Saldivia, Luis Galarza, Lovemore N’Dou, Rafal Jackiewicz, Philip Kotey, Krzysztof Bienias and Michael Lomax.
It’s too bad that Brook didn’t accept the offer given to him by Khan, because it might be the only chance that Brook has for a big payday unless he wants to move up to middleweight and try and get a fight against Gennady Golovkin in 2016. Like I said, I don’t think Brook’s promoter Hearn is going to risk having Brook suffer a loss because he’s got a good thing going with his mismatches against the type of opposition that I’ve mentioned above. If Hearn were to put Brook in with a dangerous opponent like Golovkin, the outcome would be pretty much acadmic. Brook wouldn’t be able to clinch his way to a win over Golovkin like he did against Shawn Porter in 2014. It would be fun to watch to see if Brook could clinch Golovkin all night long and get away with it. Somehow, I think Golovkin would stretch Brook with a big left hook while Brook is in the process of trying to clinch.
“For me, this is a massive test because Canelo is such an amazing fighter and a tough guy. I’m going in there as the underdog, whereas normally I’m the main guy,” Khan said. “I can definitely shock the world. This fight is going to keep me focused and working hard. It’s a catchweight with the title on the line. We’ll do this weight professionally and be smart about it. A lot of the training sessions have already changed to work on my power and strength.”
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