Porter picks Kell Brook to defeat Khan

By Boxing News - 01/06/2017 - Comments

Image: Porter picks Kell Brook to defeat Khan

By Scott Gilfoid: In what is no surprise to anyway, former IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter is picking Kell Brook to defeat Amir Khan when/if the fight ever happens. Porter says that Brook is the stronger fighter. Porter knows this because the two of them fought each other two years ago in a fight that was won by Brook by a questionable 12 round majority decision in August 2014.

That was the fight where Brook clinched all night long to keep Porter from throwing punches. The referee never stepped in to address the nonstop clinching from Brook. Porter wants a rematch with Brook, but it doesn’t look like it’s ever going to happen.

Brook is likely going to vacate his IBF title to avoid Errol Spence Jr. and then fight Khan in big money fight. After that, Brook will likely move up to 154, where he’ll have problems with the size, speed, power and talent of the likes of Jermell Charlo, Demerius Andrade, Erislandy Lara and Julian Williams. Jermall Charlo would be a real problem for Brook as well, but he’s expected to move up to 160, otherwise he would be a real danger as well.

Brook said this to skysports.com about Brook beating Khan:

“At this point with Amir, depending upon who he’s in the ring with, he needs to be damn-near perfect for 12 rounds and that’s really hard to do,” Porter said. “I’d probably pick Kell Brook because I think he’s stronger. I know he’s stronger. And he’s sharper.”

Come on, it’s a no-brainer that Brook beats Khan now and at any point in their careers. Khan has put a lot of weight from his catchweight fight against former WBC middleweight champion in May 2016, and it’s going to be difficult for him to take that weight off to get down to 147. When the weight does come off, I expect Khan to have the same chin and stamina problems that he’s showed in his last two fights against Canelo and Chris Algieri.

In both of those fights, Khan gassed out by the 6th round and had nothing left in the tank. I see that as a product of Khan not staying in condition in between fights, and not fighting enough. It’s not exactly earth-shattering news that Khan’s boxing career has been part time for the last five years. After Khan’s loss to Danny Garcia in 2012, he’s been fighting largely in a part time role while traveling the world doing this and that.

Heck, Khan might as well have retired in 2012, because he’s not been the active fighter he once was after that point in his career. The only thing Gilfoid can conclude is Khan’s loss to Danny Garcia took something out of him. It maybe took the confidence out of Khan, because it was his second straight loss. He’d been beaten by Lamont Peterson before that.

The thing is when you become a part time fighter for a long period of time; it does something to your stamina. I think we’re seeing that now with Khan becoming a six-round fighter in his last two fights against Canelo and Algieri. If those fights were six-round fights, Khan would have had a great chance of winning, but unfortunately for him, they weren’t.

The boxing world is still waiting on Brook to decide if he’s willing or able to fight the talented Errol Spence Jr. (21-0, 18 KOs) to defend his title against the unbeaten 2012 U.S. Olympian. There’s no excuse for Brook not to fight Spence, because Khan has already said he won’t be fighting him in the first half of 2017. Khan also said that he won’t respect Brook if he doesn’t fight his mandatory challenger in Spence, because he wouldn’t vacate his title to avoid any fighter.

Khan says he wants Brook to have his IBF title on the line when he fights him. He wants the chance to win the belt. For Brook have the IBF title in his possession, then he’ll need to face Spence and beat him unless his promoter Eddie Hearn can work out a deal with the IBF.

It would have to be a step aside deal for Brook to avoid fighting Spence. It would be sad if Brook has Hearn do that, but it would be so predictable. We saw how WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew steered around Mairis Briedis after winning the WBC title. Bellew STILL hasn’t fought Briedis, and is now scheduled to fight David Haye at heavyweight.

The only way Khan beats Brook is if he has a lot of problems making weight at 147, and is too weight drained to fight effectively. There’s also a chance that Brook’s surgically repaired right eye could close up on him and force a stoppage. I think there’s an outside chance of that happening. But Khan would need to be able to fight long enough to close up Brook’s eye, and I don’t know if he can do that. Brook will certainly be swinging for the fences in the early rounds.

I noticed that Brook had a lot of energy for exactly 2 rounds against Golovkin. By the end of the 2nd, Brook was fading and doing nothing but running and throwing odd pot shots. It looked to be like Brook was gassed after the 2nd. Maybe it was the weight gain that did it to him or the constant pressure from GGG. Whatever the case, Brook was in the shutdown mode after the 2nd round, and no longer effective at all.