By Allan Fox: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn is interested in upgrading the opposition for his fighter IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (35-0, 24 KOs) following his noncompetitive fight against Frankie Gavin (22-2, 13 KOs) on Saturday at the O2 Arena in London, UK.
Hearn put together an in house fight between Brook and Rios, both of which he promotes, and the fight was disappointingly one-sided with Brook having his way from start to finish in a 6th round knockout victory. After the fight, Hearn mentioned being frustrated that Amir Khan won’t agree to fight Brook.
Hearn went on to say that Manny Pacquiao, Brandon Rios and Keith Thurman are guys that he wants to match Brook against. Just how soon he plans on putting one of those fighters in with Brook is the magic question. Brook will be fighting in August or September, and that would preclude Thurman being the opponent for him because he has a scheduled fight on July 11th against Luis Collazo.
Pacquiao won’t be fighting for the remainder of the year after having had shoulder surgery after his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. this month. Rios would likely jump at the chance to fight Brook, but he and his promoters at Top Rank will need time. They’re not the type that will take the fight at the last second.
“I want big, big fights now. I don’t know, you have to speak to Eddie, but it’s getting boring now, me and Khan. We offered him,” Brook said after tonight’s win over Gavin. We’ve offered him.”
Khan says he’s not interested in fighting Brook right now because he continues to fight weak opposition like Jo Jo Dan and Gavin, rather than the more notable fighters. Khan wants to face guys that are popular or at least well-known in the United States. Brook is only known by the hardcore boxing fans in the U.S., and it’s unclear if he’ll ever have any kind of solid fan base in that country due to most of his fights taking place in the UK.
“It’s de ja vu. We did this in Sheffield 9 weeks ago,” Hearn said. “You know, everybody wants Brook against Khan, but what can you do? He’s waiting for Floyd Mayweather. That fight’s not happening in September. Apparently he thinks it could happen next May. It’s just a waiting game, you know. It’s disappointing for the British public because Kell Brook wants to fight Amir Khan and, you know, we talk about it and we get excited about it, but you lose the excitement when you can’t see it happening. So we move on. We look at Brandon Rios. We look at Keith Thurman. You know, we look at Manny Pacquiao. These are names that Kell Brook needs to be fighting next.”
It would be interesting if Hearn does upgrade Brook’s competition because he’s clearly trailing the other welterweight champions in terms of the competition he’s been facing. Hearn needs to upgrade the guys that Brook is fighting because he’s capable of beating better opposition than that.
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