Khan: Brook needs to prove himself; Rios is really just a lightweight

By Boxing News - 07/01/2015 - Comments

khan677777777(Photo credit: Sumio Yamada) By Scott Gilfoid: If IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (35-0, 24 KOs) wants to get a fight against Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) he’s seemingly going in the wrong direction. Khan doesn’t approve of Brook fighting Brandon Rios in his next fight on September 12th at the O2 Arena in London, UK. That’s an opponent that Khan doesn’t rate because Rios found most of his success in his career at lightweight, where he held down briefly the WBA title until he ate himself out of the division.

Brook’s choice of Rios for his next fight is not the right move, as far as Khan is concerned. But if Khan is waiting for Brook to one day start fighting high quality fighters like Marcos Maidana, Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter [the new Porter], Danny Garcia and Adrien Broner, I think he might be waiting for a long, long time.

For some reason, Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn isn’t making those fights for Brook. Instead of those guys for Brook, we’re seeing him fight the likes of Jo Jo Dan, Alvaro Morales, Frankie Gavin, Carson, Jones and Vyacheslav Senchenko.

“It’d be a big fight in the UK and I know the fans want it but this is all about timing,” Khan said to Ringcast.net. “He needs to prove himself at world level. Even Brandon Rios is a lightweight really.”

With the Khan is waiting and waiting on the Brook fight, I see him eventually waiting too long to the point where both guys are getting beaten. Khan and Brook are too flawed to wait much longer for their fight because they’re both going to get whipped once they stop fighting soft opposition. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Rios ends up destroying Brook and giving him his first official loss.

I think Brook deserved a loss in his fight against Shawn Porter last year, a fight in which Brook clinched like mad at a clip of 10 times per round. While some boxing fans thought it was genius for Brook to hold Porter each time he got close to him, I wasn’t one of them. I didn’t like the clinching Brook did against Porter, and I definitely didn’t like the clinching Adrien Broner did against Porter as well. Brook created the clinching blueprint for Broner to follow, but he didn’t get away with it like Brook did. Broner was docked a point by the referee, and Brook should have lost points as well for all the holding he did in that fight.

“Let him build his name, let him prove himself and let people say he’s untouchable and then I’ll come beat him,” Khan said.

Khan is in the same boat as Brook as far as needing to build up his name with quality wins. Khan has gone soft for the past three years after his loss to Danny Garcia. Khan’s popularity basically hit bottom with that fight, and he’s not taken on the right opposition to raise himself out of the mud that he put himself in. I mean, it’s nice that Khan is lecturing Brook and sounding like he’s coming from high, but the reality is he’s not different than Brook.

Both guys have fought softies pretty much the entire careers, and when they’ve faced the best, they’ve both held a ton in ugly, ugly fights. I wish they would stand in the pocket and fight in an exciting manner when stepping it up, but that’s not what they’ve done when fighting good opponents.



Comments are closed.