Kell Brook vs. Jessie Vargas possible for July or August

By Boxing News - 04/28/2016 - Comments

Image: Kell Brook vs. Jessie Vargas possible for July or AugustBy Dan Ambrose: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn is in talks with Top Rank to put together a unification fight between IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (36-0, 25 KOs) and WBO 147lb champion Jessie Vargas (27-1, 10 KOs) for July or August, according to Dan Rafael.

Brook has been talking about wanting a big name fight for his next bout and he’s hoping that it would take place in a stadium in the UK. Vargas, 26, is one of the names that Brook has mentioned wanting to fight. He and his promoter Hearn are also interested in Tim Bradley, Adrien Broner, Amir Khan and Danny Garcia.

It’s unclear how much interest those fighters and their promoters have in facing Brook. If all Brook can get is a fight against Vargas, then it would suggest that Hearn wasn’t able to get any of the bigger names to fight Brook. Vargas isn’t a highly popular fighter in the United States as of yet. It might be a different story in the UK, but in the U.S, Vargas isn’t a big name right now.

“Eddie Hearn and Top Rank boxing are discussing possible July/Aug fight in UK between Special K Brook and Jessie Vargas. Great fight if it happens,” said Dan Rafael on his Twitter.

Brook doesn’t have the name recognition in the United States for a fight against him to be worthwhile to many of the top welterweights. If they were to fight him, they would be doing it mainly for his IBF title if they wanted to collect another title.

The problem with adding the IBF title to one of the top fighter’s collection, if they were to beat Brook, is they would then likely be facing unbeaten Errol Spence in the near future when/if he beats the Top Rank promoted Konstantin Ponomarev in an IBF 147lb eliminator bout. A fight against Spence is no picnic for anyone in the division. Even Brook hasn’t volunteered take that fight despite him wanting to be seen as the best fighter in the welterweight division.

Vargas was easily beaten last year by Tim Bradley in June 2015 in losing a one-sided 12 round decision. Vargas came back to defeat the previously undefeated Sadam Ali by a 9th round knockout last March. Vargas isn’t known for being a puncher, but his power was enough to get the untested Ali out of there.

Brook wants to fight the top names in the 147lb division, but he might have to be happy with fighting Vargas. One fight Brook potentially have is against IBF/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin. Brook recently said he would be willing to fight Golovkin at a catch-weight.

Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffer said today that they would be interested in taking the fight with Brook if he’s serious. The fact that Brook’s promoter Hearn is interested in an arguably much smaller fight against Vargas suggests that Brook wasn’t serious when he said he would like to fight Golovkin. Talking about it and actually going it are two different things. Brook would likely see his unbeaten record marred by Golovkin if they fought each other. It took Brook 12 years to build up that record.