By Scott Gilfoid: In some positive news, Amir Khan and Kell Brook are expected to face each other in 2017. Brook’s Eddie Hearn is feeling confident that the fight between the two British welterweights can take place next year. Here’s the catch: Brook and Khan will likely both taking tune-up fights next before facing each other in the second half of the year.
Khan wants a tune-up fight in April to test out his surgically repaired right hand. As for the 30-year-old Brook, he’ll need to drop his IBF welterweight title for him to take a tune-up, because the International Boxing Federation has already ordered him to fight Errol Spence Jr. in his next fight.
There’s a purse bid scheduled for late February. Hearn has a good chance of winning the bid to have the fight staged in the UK. However, Gilfoid expects Brook to drop the IBF title in almost no time. If Brook fights Spence, he could wind up getting stopped just like in his recent 5th round TKO loss to middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin several months ago on September 10.
Brook was able to avoid negative fallout from that defeat due to him moving up to middleweight to fight the perceived best fighter in the 160lb division in GGG. Brook won’t receive the same cover if he faces Spence and gets stopped in a similar fashion. The boxing fans will be all over Brook if Spence annihilates him the way that Triple G did.
Additionally, Spence is a very hard fight for someone coming off of a busted eye socket injury like the one Brook sustained against Golovkin. I wouldn’t be in Brook’s shoes if I had to face a talent like Spence after my eye socket was busted. I’m just saying.
Hearn said this to skysports.com about the Khan-Brook fight negotiations:
“There is still a way to go but it’s the obvious fight and talks are positive about finally making this a reality,” Hearn said about the Khan vs. Brook fight. “We are working hard behind the scenes with Asif Vali to try and get the fight over the line and hope for some good news in middle to late January.”
Let’s face the facts. The Khan vs. Brook fight has to take place in 2017, because both guys are now in their 30s, and the future doesn’t look nearly as bright for either of them in the 147lb division anymore. They both had some success in the division, but it doesn’t look like they have anywhere to go now. Spence is about to take Brook’s IBF belt from him in 2017.
Brook can make the division as it is. He’s not going to be able to look for greener pastures by taking on the winner of the Danny Garcia vs. Keith Thurman fight, because those guys are strong welterweights. They’re not struggling to make the weight. I rate both of them below Spence, but they’re still plenty good enough to beat Khan and Brook. That’s the thing. Khan wants to fight the winner of the Thurman-Garcia fight, but he’s going to get knocked out in my opinion.
It’s game over once Khan suffers another devastating knockout. Like Brook, Khan won’t have any cover by blaming his loss on the fact that he was fighting a middleweight like he did in his last fight against Saul Canelo Alvarez.
If Khan gets blasted out by the winner of the Garcia-Thurman fight, then the fans will see for themselves that he doesn’t have the talent to compete against the best fighters in the 147lb division. In other words, Khan will be in the same leaky boat as Brook on the rough seas of the welterweight division. That is precisely why it’s important that Khan and Brook fight each other in 2017. It’s also very important that they don’t risk their hides by facing talented welterweights like Spence BEFORE they face each other.
Spence is a game changer. The question is, if Brook faces Spence and gets blasted out (like Gilfoid thinks he will happen) will the boxing fans still eagerly purchase the fight between Khan and Brook? I think not. The fans won’t want any part of the fight in my estimation, because they’ll have seen Brook exposed – again. We saw how Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather’s pay-per-view numbers dropped off dramatically in their next fights after their “fight of the century” in 2015. The fans didn’t want to pay to see either of them in high numbers after that dud. I can see the same thing happening with Brook and Khan if they face a good opponent in early 2017 and lose.
After all the talking that Brook did about wanting to hold onto his IBF title that he worked so hard to win, it’ll be a letdown to see him vacating the belt right when he’s finally about to face his first talented opponent as the champion. Brook won the IBF 147lb title on August 16, 2014 in beating IBF champion Shawn Porter by a 12 round majority decision at the StubHub Center in Carson, California. Brook has defended his IBF title successfully three times against these fighters:
Ionut “Jo Jo” Dan
Frankie Gavin
Kevin Bizier
Those are not super great fighters in the welterweight division. I don’t blame Brook for fighting Dan or Bizier, because it the IBF that made them his mandatory challengers. However, for Brook to be vacating his IBF title just now when he’s about to fight someone really good in Spence, it’s just more than a little off putting to me. Brook still hasn’t vacated his IBF title yet, so there’s still a chance that he chooses to do the courageous thing by taking the fight against Spence. I don’t think he will, but it would look good if he did face Spence.
The idea behind Brook facing Spence is to show that he’s an old school type of fighter that ducks no one. Hearn says Brook is the best fighter in the 147lb division. If that is the case, then he shouldn’t have any problems facing Spence and beating him.
The eye injury changes everything though. With Brook coming off of a bad eye injury, it might not be a good idea for him to be fighting Spence or anyone good in the first half of 2017. Brook might not want to chance it against a hard puncher in early 2017, because his bad eye might act up on him and give him problems. If Brook suffers a setback with his right eye, it might mess plans for the Khan fight.
“I’m a better fighter, a much more skillful fighter. I’ve been in with better opposition than Kell,” said Khan to skysports.com. “I think Golovkin is the only ‘A’ fighter he has fought. With me, I’ve been in with the likes of [Marcos] Maidana, Danny Garcia, Zab Judah – I’ve fought the best names in boxing. I think it’s time now where I shut Kell Brook up, and his team, and I settle the score to show who the No 1, and the best fighter in the UK, is.”
Khan is right about Golovkin being the only A-level fighter that Brook has fought. Shawn Porter is a good B-level guy. He’s not in the same class as Thurman or Spence. It’s unfortunate that Brook has fought only one good fighter in his entire 12-year pro career. I consider Khan a B-level fighter as well. Khan hasn’t proven himself to be in the same level as Thurman, Spence or even Danny Garcia. Khan has failed in losses to Briedis Prescott, Garcia and Canelo Alvarez. You can argue that Khan should have lost to Julio Diaz and Maidana. I had Diaz winning the fight against Khan. In the Khan-Maidana fight, I think Maidana would have knocked Khan out if the referee hadn’t kept pulling him off of Khan after he had him hurt. Maidana was trying to finish Khan off in close after staggering him in the 10th, and the referee was pulling them apart. It was the strangest thing I’ve seen, and I’ve seen some very weird things in boxing.
Khan probably is a better fighter than Brook in terms of his skill-set. The one thing that keeps Khan from being considered the better fighter is he keeps losing each time he steps it up. Khan has three losses compared to Brook’s one defeat. Is Khan a better fighter than Brook? You can’t say that he is based on his three defeats.
Nevertheless, Brook has only fought one good fighter in his entire career and he lost to him in his defeat at the hands of Triple G. Brook’s fight against Porter was an ugly to watch fight filled with a lot of holding initiated by Brook. Could Brook have beaten Porter without holding him at every opportunity? I don’t think so. Brook barely beat Porter WITH him holding over and over in each round. Many of Brook’s boxing fans like to say that he EASILY beat Porter, but that’s just not so. The scores of the fight were as follows: 116-112, 117-111 and 114-114. The 114-114 was from the British judge Dave Parris. I didn’t agree with that score, as I scored the fight 117-111 for Porter. I thought Brook should have been penalized at least twice for his excessive holding in round. When I see a fighter just holding and being allowed to do it, I can’t give them any credit for winning the fight. Even with Brook’s holding, I thought Porter landed the better shots and was the better fighter on the night.
Khan was saying recently that Brook would be his tune-up fight to get him ready to fight the winner of the Danny Garcia vs. Keith Thurman fight. It now appears that Khan has changed his mind. He wants a different tune-up opponent. Khan’s manager Al Haymon is going to need to choose wisely when selecting someone for him to fight, because if he picks someone too good, we could see a big upset.
There are things that make Khan a vulnerable fighter right now. For one, he’s been largely inactive for the last couple of years. Khan fought only once in 2016 and 2015. Khan fought twice in 2014 but just once in 2013. That’s just five fights in the last three years for Khan. That’s a little over one fight per year for three years. Secondly, Khan is coming off of a bad knockout loss to Canelo. When a fighter has been knocked out as badly as Khan was against Canelo, it could potentially lessen their punch resistance, making them more vulnerable to getting knocked out again. You can bet that whoever Khan’s management chooses for his tune-up fight, they’re going to be swinging for the fences in trying to KO him with every punch. We’ve seen Khan get staggered and dropped by non-punchers in the past in Julio Diaz in their fight in 2013. Diaz was a former lightweight, whose power didn’t carry up with him when he moved up to welterweight. Considering that Khan has had problems taking head shots from non-punchers in the past, it makes him vulnerable to getting stopped by almost anyone that his management finds for him to fight in a tune-up. The best type of opponent for Khan to fight would be someone really short and with no punching power to speak of.
Someone with a weak chin would be absolutely perfect for Khan to fight, because he could then knock them out with a flurry of shots in the first three rounds without getting hit too much.
In Khan’s last two fights against Canelo and Chris Algieri, he’s shown stamina problems. Khan looked good in his first four rounds against Canelo, but by the 5th, he was starting to tire. When Canelo finally knocked Khan out in the 6th, I attribute the main reason for that happening due to Khan simply getting tired and lazy.
When Khan stopped moving as much against Canelo in the 5th, he was quickly knocked out in the next round. In the Khan-Algieri fight, Khan fought well in the first six rounds of the fight. However, in the second half of the fight, Khan faded badly and took punishment from an increasingly emboldened Algieri. Khan was totally dominating Algieri in the first six rounds. It was only after Khan got tired that Algieri was able to take over the fight and give him the business.
What this is all means is that Khan has stamina problems that probably aren’t going to be fixed anytime soon. When a fighter becomes a part time warrior like Khan, I think it negatively impacts their conditioning/stamina in their fights. Khan looks like he’s in great shape when he enters the ring, but in terms of his stamina/cardiovascular system, he’s not been fighting like he’s in great shape. If this carries over to Khan’s tune-up fight in April 2017, he could lose if his likely over-matched opponent drags him into the deep waters and starts working him over the way that Algieri was. I don’t rate Algieri as being a good welterweight, and yet he was battering Khan in the last six rounds of their fight on May 29, 2016. Khan won the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 115-113, 117-111 and 117-111. I thought the 115-113 score was more accurate for what took place in that fight. It was a very close win for Khan over Algieri.