Hearn giving Khan 48 hours to agree to Kell Brook fight

By Boxing News - 03/29/2015 - Comments

SHEFFIELD-BROOK-DANN18(Photo Credit: Lawrence Lustig) By Scott Gilfoid: IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn is only giving Amir Khan just 48 hours to agree to a fight against the 28-year-old Brook otherwise there will be no chance of Khan getting the fight, which Hearn had plans on taking place on June 13th in the UK.

Hearn felt that the Khan-Brook fight would be big enough to stage in a large stadium in Britain. But Khan has already said that he has no interest in fighting Brook, because he’s not a well-known fighter in the United States of yet, and he’s still fighting lesser opposition despite the fact that Brook has been a pro for 11 years.

“If we don’t start talking for real in the next couple of days it will be too late for June 13,” Hearn said via the Dailymail.co.uk. “And I’m not expecting my phone to ring within 48 hours. They have already said that our fight will happen – but not next.”

Hearn needs to stay patient and stop whining so much about the fight. Khan already said that he’ll likely face Brook at the end of the year, or possibly next year. Khan said that Hearn needs to start matching Brook against quality fighters instead of C-level opposition like Jo Jo Dan.

Hearn and Brook obviously have a good excuse for taking the fight against Dan, because this was Brook’s first fight since being stabbed last year. Dan was also Brook’s IBF mandatory challenger, so Hearn and Brook decided to get it out of the way and use the fight as a tune-up.

The International Boxing Federation made it very, very easy for Brook to get an easy mandatory out of the way by ranking Jo Jo Dan instead of someone arguably much, much better like Tim Bradley, Shawn Porter, Diego Chaves or Fredrick Lawson. Those guys would have given Brook a lot of problems, even if Brook decided to clinch them all night long like he did in his fight against Porter last year.

I think Hearn needs to realize that it’s him and Brook who badly want the Khan fight, and not the other way around. In other words, you don’t setup ultimatums against guys with more cache than your own fighter, because it doesn’t work that way, and it only makes you look out of touch with reality.

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Hearn and Brook can obviously ask politely for the Khan fight, but you’re not going to get anywhere setting up 48 hour deadlines for Khan to have to agree. I mean, you can certainly setup deadlines, but it’s kind of an empty gesture when you’re fighting guys like Jo Jo Dan, and then making a big deal out of it as if you beat someone good.

If Hearn can’t get Khan to agree to the fight in the next 48 hours, then Hearn will look to set him up with either Brandon Rios or Juan Manuel Marquez. Those guys are the names that Hearn has mentioned for Brook. Keith Thurman would be an obvious selection, but he’s recovering from a big bump on his forehead from his last fight against Robert Guerrero, and I don’t think he’ll be ready to fight by July, which is when Hearn wants Brook to fight next. I don’t think Hearn would have any interest in matching Brook against Thurman, but the injury to Thurman’s head makes it a non-starter anyway.



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