By William Mackay: After an impressive 3rd round TKO defeat of Michal Lomax last Saturday night, British welterweight champion Kell Brook (20-0, 13 KO’s) is now aiming for former BBBofC welterweight champion Michael Jennings (35-2, 17 KO’s) next. A victory over the 31-year-old Jennings would be a good victory for Brook to add to his growing collection of wins since turning pro five years ago in 2004.
Jennings lost recently in a 5th round TKO at the hands of Miguel Cotto in February 2009 in a fight in which Jennings was badly over-matched and never really into the fight.
Prior to that, Jennings lost his British welterweight title three years earlier in a 12 round split decision loss to Young Mutley in 2006. Jennings stuck around after that loss and compiled six wins over mostly B quality opponents until landing the fight with Cotto.
Brook, however, might be better off shooting for the EBU welterweight title rather than wasting time fighting someone like Jennings. If Brook wants to continue to improve, he needs to be looking for tougher opponents than the likes of Lomax and Jennings. Brook is currently ranked number #6 in the World Boxing Organization and if he wants to be improving as a fighter and not merely wasting time, he needs to be going after ranked welterweights like Mike Jones, Sebastian Lujan, Selcuk Aydin, Jesus Soto Karass and Ivan Kirpa rather than fighters like Jennings.
It seems that Brook is thinking too much in narrow terms, seeing the short term acclaim that he’ll get in the UK rather than looking at the big picture by taking on top 15 world class welterweights instead. That is how Brook will continue to improve, not by beating up on a weak puncher like Jennings or Lomax.
In his fight last Saturday night, Brook methodically took Lomax apart with right hands and jabs, beating him badly for three rounds. In the 3rd round, Brook hurt Lomax with some powerful combinations and was battering him against the ropes when the referee Richard James Davies stepped in and stopped the bout with Lomax still on his feet but badly hurt and cut under his right eye. The fight wasn’t even remotely close and it was hard to see how much benefit that Brook could have gotten out of the fight.
Naseem Hamed Doesn’t see Similarities Between Him and Amir Khan
Former WBC/WBO featherweight champion Naseem Hamed (36-1, 31 KO’s) was impressed with Amir Khan’s 12 round decision over Andriy Kotelnik last Saturday night at the M.E.N. Arena, in Manchester. However, Hamed feels that he’s a much different fighter than Khan, saying “Naseem Hamed brought something completely different to any other fighter in the whole world.”
What Hamed is probably referring to is his tendency to go all out looking for knockout wins. Hamed didn’t care if he was putting his own chin on the line. Indeed, he was knocked down occasionally by his opponents, but he always was looking to entertain his fans by trying to take the head off of his opponents.
In contrast, Khan fought mostly on the back foot against Kotelnik last Saturday night and fought as if he was afraid of getting hurt by the weak punching Ukrainian. The fight ended up being rather dull because of Khan’s safety first style of fighting.
Since turning pro in 2005, Khan has sometimes been compared to Hamed, although it’s hard to see why other than the blazing hand speed that both of them have in common. In terms of fighting style, they are total opposites. Hamed was a knockout artist who went after every opponent from the opening bell trying decapitate them, whereas Khan tends to use his hand speed to flurry on his opponents and doesn’t have the same one-punch knockout power that Hamed previously had.
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