Mayweather: Khan should have fought Kell Brook

By Boxing News - 02/09/2016 - Comments

Floyd MayweatherBy Scott Gilfoid: Floyd Mayweather Jr. thinks that Amir Khan should have agreed to face IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook next in a fight in the summer. Mayweather wanted Khan to face Brook in order to give the British fans wanted to see.

Mayweather thinks the two fighters could have worked out a venue for the fight by having it take place in London rather than in Khan’s neck of the woods in Bolton or Brook’s favorite spot in Sheffield. Khan chose instead to take a bigger fight against WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez rather than a smaller one against Brook.

You have to wonder whether Mayweather would pick Brook out if the choice was between Brook and Canelo. It’s interesting that Mayweather never chose to fight Brook. He fought Canelo, but he definitely didn’t fight Brook. That tells me that he didn’t see Brook as a big enough name to fight him, which is why it makes no sense for Khan to fight Brook when he has better options available to him like Canelo.

“I want to commend you (Brook). You are a true champion, you carry yourself as a true professional and I like what he represents in the sport of boxing,” Mayweather said via skysports.com. “He’s a very good boxer, solid puncher and he always goes out there and gets the job done. But I think for the fans, because the UK fans are loyal fans, Amir Khan should have fought Kell Brook, that’s just my honest opinion.”

It looks like Mayweather was just being nice to Brook and the British fans by saying stuff that he thought they wanted to here. I mean, Khan didn’t do anything wrong in ignoring Brook for a bigger fight against Canelo. Khan basically did what Mayweather did in ignoring Brook for bigger fights.

If Mayweather wants to be down on someone for ignoring Brook, then he needs to look in the mirror because as far as I can tell, Mayweather never even entertained the idea of fighting Brook. Now is that? Is it because Mayweather was afraid of Brook, or was it because he saw him as too obscure with too few fans to be worthy of a fight. If Mayweather had selected Brook in his last fight in September, I wouldn’t be surprised if the fight brought in far fewer PPV buys than Mayweather’s fight against Andre Berto.

“I think we should have put the fight on an even playing field,” Mayweather said. “I think he’s (Khan) from Bolton, he’s (Brook) from Sheffield, so they could have met in the middle in London, made the fight happen on an even playing field.”

I’m wondering if there’s some worry there with Mayweather about Khan being on the verge of stealing some thunder from Mayweather by him fighting Canelo. The Canelo-Khan fight is getting a TON of attention in the boxing world from fans, and that attention is no longer on Mayweather. Khan has the chance to do what Mayweather did and show that it wasn’t so special what he accomplished in beating Canelo in 2013. If Khan beats Canelo too, then that would diminish what Mayweather accomplished in beating Canelo. That’s the way I see it. So when I hear Mayweather saying that Khan should have fought Brook instead of Canelo, it tells me that Mayweather is worried about Khan stealing attention from him and potentially diminishing what he accomplished if he winds up beating Canelo.



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