By Scott Gilfoid: Promoter Eddie Hearn is hoping real hard that Amir Khan (31-4, 19 KOs) will face his fighter IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (36-1, 25 KOs) in his next fight. Hearn believes he can make the fight between them very quickly if he can get Khan to meet with them. Hearn sees the Brook vs. Khan fight as the biggest fight in British boxing right now. Hearn thinks the fight will happen.
Hearn has a sense of urgency in wanting to suddenly make the Khan vs. Brook fight next. I’ve never seen that kind of urgency from Hearn before in the past. It makes Gilfoid think that there’s some worry there for Hearn, because Brook is now been ordered to face unbeaten Errol Spence Jr. in his next fight.
If Brook loses to Spence, I guess you can pretty much forget about his fight against Khan taking place any time soon. Brook would need to rebuild his career. If Hearn goes ahead and puts Brook in with Khan anyway off of a loss to Spence, I doubt the fight will make the kind of money that it would make right now with Brook only with one loss on his record.
The thing is if Khan doesn’t choose to face Brook next, it puts Brook in a situation where he may be facing an almost certain loss to the talented 2012 U.S Olympian Errol Spence Jr. (21-0, 19 KOs) next. The only way that Brook can dodge the Spence fight is if he can get a unification match against one of the other champions at 147 or if he chooses to vacate his IBF belt in order to fight Khan. It’s doubtful that the International Boxing Federation will allow Brook to steer around Spence for a fight against Khan though, because he’s not a champion and he’s not ranked above Spence. Brook doesn’t have another voluntary defense available to him, because he used it up when he moved up to middleweight to fight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin last September. Golovkin blasted Brook out in five easy rounds in front of Brook’s own British fans at the O2 Arena in London, England.
“It’s one of the biggest fights in Britain and now a huge fight in world boxing,” Hearn said to skysports.com. “If Amir is ready to take that fight next, let’s just get it on. We could do a deal in 10 minutes in a room, we really can. We’re a million per cent ready to take that fight. I’ve spoken to Amir and I believe that fight will happen. We want it next,” said Hearn.
I think Hearn needs to come to terms with the reality that Khan is injured, and he’s not going to be back inside the ring until early 2017. When Khan does return to the ring, I sure as heck don’t see him wanting to fight Brook. Khan is talking about wanting to fight the winner of the Keith Thurman vs. Danny Garcia fight. Khan is the #1 WBC contender for Garcia’s WBC 147lb title. Khan has said recently that the Brook fight will always be there for him. He wants to fight Garcia or Thurman first, and then Brook. What part of that does Hearn not understand?
“The Brook fight is always going to be there for me, so if the Garcia rematch was on the table, I think I’d take that first,” said Khan to the Dailystar.co.uk. “The Brook fight is a big one for the fans, but I’d take the Garcia fight first because there is unfinished business there,” said Khan.
Khan was knocked out in the 4th round by Danny Garcia in 2012, and he’s wanted to avenge that loss for quite some time. You can understand Khan’s point of view of wanting to take the Garcia fight FIRST, because if he were to fight Brook now and potentially lose to him, then there’s little chance that he’ll ever get Garcia to fight him. Khan is already coming off of a 6th round knockout loss to Saul Canelo Alvarez last May.
If Khan loses another fight, then that would be two losses in a row. He might as well forget about Garcia permanently, because it would take him years to come back from another loss. I’m not saying that Khan would necessarily lose to Brook, but the potential would be there. It’s smarter for Khan to fight Garcia first, because the Brook fight will be there regardless of what happens to Khan in the Garcia fight. The British boxing fans will still want to see Khan and Brook fight no matter how many times Khan gets beaten.
“If Amir is ready to take that fight next, let’s just get it on. We could do a deal in 10 minutes in a room, we really can,” said Hearn.
Oh my, doesn’t Hearn sound a tad bit desperate to make the Khan-Brook fight? I don’t see why Hearn is so desperate. If Hearn believes in his fighter Brook, then he’ll feel confident that he’ll beat Spence when they face each other in early 2017. Don’t you think that the Brook vs. Khan fight will be BIGGER if Brook beats Spence first? Brook would show that his loss to Golovkin wasn’t a big deal. The boxing public would forget all about Brook’s loss to Golovkin if he could beat Spence.
Of course, if Brook loses to Spence badly in getting blasted out in five or so rounds, then it would be a bad thing for Hearn. It would make his work a lot harder in trying to put together a fight between Brook and Khan. How does Hearn make the Khan-Brook fight if Spence wipes Brook out in five rounds? Khan might choose to turn up his nose at the idea of fighting Brook with him coming off of a bludgeoning by Spence.
If Spence destroys Brook in early 2017 like a lot of boxing fans think will happen, it’s going to be hard to come up with good excuse to say why he lost. We already know what the excuses were from Brook for his loss to Golovkin. They were as follows:
– Brook’s eye was injured
– Golovkin was too big and too strong
– Brook could see four Golovkin’s in the ring due to the eye injury
– Brook wasn’t used to fighting at middleweight. If he had been given more time to get accustomed to fighting at middleweight, he would have beaten GGG.
My guess is Brook’s excuses for a loss to Spence would be along the lines of these types of excuses:
– Brook’s eye was still giving me problems
– Brook was drained from having to get down to 147. He needs to be fighting at 154.
– The referee stopped it too soon. Brook would have won the fight if the referee didn’t stop the fight.
– Brook deserved the decision [if Spence wins by a decision].
The excuses are probably not going to work for Brook this time around. You can use a bunch of excuses once to try and explain away a loss to a talent like Golovkin, but if Brook does the same thing against Spence, I think the boxing public is not going to be so sympathetic this time around.
Brook has got to take responsibilities his losses, and give credit to his conquerors. It looks bad when fighters don’t give credit to their opponents after they lose to them. I would hope that Brook gives Spence credit if/when he gets knocked out by him.
It just seems weird to me how Hearn is banging the drum for the Khan-Brook fight all of a sudden. Hearn needs to forget about that fight, and let his ‘champion’ Brook do what he’s supposed to do and defend his belt against his mandatory challenger Spence. That’s how the sport is supposed to be done. If Brook doesn’t have the talent to beat Spence, then he shouldn’t be the champion. It’s survival of the fittest in boxing. If you’re good, then you win. If you’re not so good, then you lose. Hearn needs to let nature play out and take its course instead of trying to stop the natural selection process. Hearn needs to let the survival of the fittest process play out.
If Brook has the talent to beat Spence, then he’ll keep his belt. If he’s inferior to Spence in the talent department like many boxing fans believe to be the case, then Brook will lose his IBF belt. There’s nothing wrong with that. Just as long as we get the best holding the belts, that’s all that’s important. Brook can go on and be a good contender for the remainder of his career if he can’t handle it against the top dogs at 147 or he can move up to 154 like he’s been talking about. I’d love to see how Brook does against Demetrius Andrade, Erislandy Lara, Julian “J-Rock” Williams and the Charlo brothers. If Brook is really having a hard time making 147 like he says he is, then he can always move up to junior middleweight and try his hand against those talents.