By Scott Gilfoid: Despite fighting a guy who some boxing fans feel has a badly inflated ranking, IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (33-0, 22 KOs) feels he’s going to be able to make a statement tonight in his fight against #1 IBF Ionut “Jo Jo” Dan Ion (34-2, 18 KOs) in their fight at the Motorpoint Arena, Sheffield, Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
When I picture a fighter bragging about wanting to make a statement, I see a fight that is a competitive one on paper between two talented fighters that are fairly evenly matched in terms of boxing skills, power and speed.
Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening with the Brook-Dan fight. Instead, I see Brook facing a fighter with an inflated resume filled with soft/mediocre opposition, and a ranking that is perhaps 20 spots too high.
“I’m looking to make a statement,” Brook said about the Jo Jo Dan fight via Skysports.com. “I’m going out all over the world. There’s going to be excitement. It’s going to be epic. I’ve got to hold it together and stay professional. I’m meant to do this and I think I’ll handle it well.”
The Brook-Dan fight isn’t what I see as a big deal. Brook is merely getting a mandatory defense out of the way before he hopes to get bigger fights against guys like Floyd Mayweather Jr, Manny Pacquiao or Amir Khan. Whether any of those fights take place in 2015 is anyone’s guess. Khan and Juan Manuel Marquez are Brook’s best bet for him to get a big fight.
Brook is probably going to need a win over one or both of them to get a fight against Mayweather or Pacquiao. That also means that Brook is going to need to fight in a heck of a lot more entertaining fighting style than he did in taking the IBF 147 pound strap off of Shawn Porter last year. Brook clinched like mad in that fight, and the thing is he still barely won the fight even with him clinching constantly with his punch and grab technique. That kind of fighting is very, very ugly to watch, and I don’t see Brook being able to get the bigger fights if he continues to clinch rather than fight.
I know the International Boxing Federation has their reasons for ranking Jo Jo Dan above the likes of Tim Bradley, Amir Khan, Shawn Porter, Diego Chaves, Sadam Ali and Devon Alexander, but I don’t understand it. I see all of those fighters beating Jo Jo Dan with ease without even taking their game out of 1st gear. What I’m saying is I don’t understand the IBF’s reasons for ranking Jo Jo Dan at No.1, because he’s never beaten anyone during his career that I feel was good enough to give him a No.1 ranking. I mean, we are talking about a fighter that was beaten not once but twice by Selcuk Aydin.
While some boxing fans think that one of the fights was controversial, I don’t. Even if one of them were controversial, Dan still was beaten another time by Aydin. The fact that he couldn’t beat Aydin suggests that he doesn’t belong at #1 in the IBF’s rankings. Heck, I don’t think Jo Jo Dan rates to be ranked in the top 15, because I think the current top 15 contenders the IBF has ranked would easily beat him.
Comments are closed.