By Scott Gilfoid: A deal has been reached between IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (24-0-1, 15 KO’s) and his #1 IBF mandatory challenger Kell Brook (34-0, 22 KO’s) for August 9th in New York, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. This means there’s just a little over 2 months to go before the two fighters will need to step inside the ring to face each other. Hopefully for both of their sake they’ve been training already for the fight because 2 months isn’t a great deal of time to train for a fight.
“IBF says deal has been reached for @ShowtimeShawnP [Porter] vs @SpecialKBrook and it will be Aug. 9 in NYC,” Rafael said on his twitter.
This will be the second time for the 28-year-old Brook to be in position for a world title fight.
Brook was scheduled to face former IBF welterweight champion Devon Alexander last year, but Brook suffered a couple of injuries to his feet and ankles resulting in the fight being cancelled. Luckily for Brook, he only had to stay busy in beating former WBA welterweight champion Vyacheslav Senchenko and an obscure fighter named Alvararo Robles. Brook knocked both of them out, but he failed to impress against either of them. Senchenko shook Brook up with a big right hand in the 3rd round of their fight before getting stopped in the 4th round.
Porter, 26, could be a real nightmare for Brook due to his smothering attacks, his excellent punching power, and his superb inside fighting skills. Even if Brook takes a crash course in fighting on the inside during training camp, he’s still going to be out of his league in trying to deal with Porter’s pressure and fierce inside attacks to the head and body.
Porter is coming off of a 4-round annihilation of former two division world champion Paulie Malignaggi last April. Porter beat Malignaggi with ease, and badly hurt him in the process of stopping him.
Brook has been fighting for 10 years as a pro and he’s still not faced anyone good until now. It’s not a good sign that Brook has been shielded for so long. It makes you wonder why Brook’s promoters never stepped him up against quality opposition in all these years.
I hate to say it but I see Brook getting knocked out in this fight. Before he gets stopped, I think Brook is going to take a royal beating from Porter. This is a bad match-up for Brook because he’s fought his entire career in Europe against guys that fought in a straight up manner by staying on the outside and never fighting in close.
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