By Scott Gilfoid: IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (33-0, 22 KOs) thinks that his March 28th opponent #1 IBF Jo Jo Dan (34-2, 18 KOs) has earned the fight to be the International Boxing Federation #1 welterweight mandatory challenger to face him at the Motorpoint Arena, Sheffield, Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
I’m not so sure that the 33-year-old Jo Jo Dan has properly earned the fight based on wins over quality opposition. The IBF may have given Dan the inflated #1 ranking with their organization, but he’s not even ranked in the top 15 by any of the other sanctioning bodies, and that kind of tells you something.
I personally don’t see Jo Jo Dan as a top tier welterweight. The IBF gave him the ranking, but I see Dan as pure 2nd tier. His two losses to Selcuk Aydin kind of proves my point.
“He’s [Jo Jo Dan] the mandatory and he’s earned the right to be in the position he is in and there is no doubt that he is going to be 100 per cent ready for this fight,” Brook said via skysports.com.
I wonder if Brook said it with a straight face when he proclaimed that Jo Jo Dan has earned the right to be in the position he is in as the IBF welterweight mandatory challenger. I just wonder why the guy that beat Jo Jo Dan twice isn’t the IBF mandatory.
After getting whipped by Aydin in 2011, Jo Jo Dan has won his last five fights against these guys: Franklin Gonzalez, Damian Frias, Kevin Bizier [twice] and Lukasz Janik. Casual boxing fans likely have never heard of any of those guys, and rightly so. Those aren’t big names at welterweight. Hardcore boxing fans are obviously familiar with Bizier, but I don’t know that beating Bizier is a big enough win to give anyone a #1 ranking.
If beating Bizier is the guy that all contenders have to beat in order to get the No.1 spot with a sanctioning body, then I wouldn’t be surprised at seeing at least 25 guys ready to beat him too. I mean, I don’t rate Bizier has a top tier welterweight, and that’s why it’s confusing that the IBF has given Jo Jo Dan a No.1 ranking based on his two wins over Bizier, and his victories over the little known Janik, Frias and Gonzalez. I see them all as 2nd tier guys.
“I’m going to have my hands full, but all I can say is that the fans are in for a real treat,” Brook said. “If he’s going to give it like he is saying he is, then believe you me I’m going to give it because there is nobody that is taking my title away.”
Jo Jo Dan can’t punch, so I don’t know how the boxing fans are going to be in for a “real treat”, as Brook says. To me, this is a real mismatch, not a “real treat.”
You can’t blame Brook for taking the easy mandatory. It’s obviously the IBF that decided to give Dan the No.1 ranking based on wins over Bizier, Gonzalez, Frias and Janik. But it is kind of sad to see Brook saying that Jo Jo Dan has earned the right to be the No.1 IBF mandatory when you see that he hasn’t beaten anyone that you can call a real challenge.
I could understand Jo Jo Dan being the IBF mandatory if he beat Marcos Maidana, Shawn Porter, Amir Khan, Tim Bradley, and Brandon Rios, but he’s not beaten any of those guys. Instead, he’s beaten guys that I see as 2nd tier fighters.
Brook is obviously building up Jo Jo Dan to make him better than he actually is, because then his win over him will make him look better.
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