brook55666 By Scott Gilfoid: If the negotiations between IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (35-0, 24 KOs) and WBO 147lb champion Timothy Bradley (32-1-1, 12 KOs) don’t work out for whatever reason, Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn says he’ll look to match Brook against either #9 WBA, #11 WBO welterweight contender Diego Chaves (23-2-1, 19 KOs) or #4 WBO, #5 WBC, #8 WBA light welterweight contender Ruslan Provodnikov (24-4, 17 KOs).

The Bradley-Brook fight is the one that Hearn badly wants to make for October 24th in the UK, but if Hearn and Brook start talking nonsense about a rematch clause in the contract, then they could drive Bradley and Top Rank away from the negotiating table.

The last thing that Bradley needs is to get stuck in a never-ending cycle of rematches against Brook after each time he beats him. It’s much better for Bradley to move on to a big money fight against Manny Pacquiao in 2016 rather than get stuck fighting Brook for far less money each time in front of hostile crowds in the UK.

If Hearn can’t negotiate the fight with Bradley, then he’ll select Chaves or Provodnikov for the fight. Chaves will likely be the guy that steps in to face Brook because Hearn has already started negotiations for him to be the guy to face Brook if they can’t get Bradley.

“Kell Brook is due to fight on October 24 in Sheffield. We had a very interesting meeting with Bob Arum in London and we really want to make the Tim Bradley fight,” Hearn said to skysports.com. “It’s a fight that’s such a great fight. I rate Tim Bradley as one of the very best welterweights in the world, as I do Kell.”

I agree with Hearn that Bradley is one of the best 147lb fighters in the division, but I don’t rate him as a top five contender, and I see this fight as another case of careful match-making by Hearn to keep Brook fighting lesser talents with little punching power. I see these guys as the actual best fighters at 147:

1. Floyd Mayweather Jr.
2. Keith Thurman
3. Errol Spence
4. Manny Pacquiao
5. Shawn Porter
6. Marcos Maidana
7. Danny Garcia
8. Amir Khan
9. Tim Bradley
10. Brandon Rios

I’m sorry, but I don’t rate Bradley as a top five contender at welterweight. He’s too much of a lighter hitter for me to see him as top five. You can make an argument that Bradley might not even be a top 10 fighter in the division, because I think Rios, Chaves, Sadam Ali and Konstantin Ponomarev (28-0, 13 KOs) might all be better fighters than Bradley.

I do think that Bradley is better known than most of the top welterweights, but I definitely don’t see him as anything more than a bottom 10 fighter at 147 at best. The fact that Hearn has been looking to match Brook against bottom 10 welterweights like Bradley, Chaves and Rios suggests that he’s still not keen to have Brook face anyone with talent that could end the Brook gravy train like Porter, Thurman, Maidana or Spence, Danny Garcia.

Those are clearly the top tier welterweights with punching power that could ruin Brook’s short little reign as the IBF 147lb champion. The 2nd tier welterweights are where Bradley is at along with guys like Khan, Bradley, Rios, Chaves, Ponomarev and Fredrick Lawson.

“We’ve also agreed terms with Diego Chavez if we want that fight. It’s a tough fight,” Hearn said. “We’re also in talks with Ruslan Provodnikov, which is a fight I really like as well.”

Well, I’m not surprised that Hearn is so eager to put Brook in with Provodnikov. After all, Provodnikov has lost 3 out of his last 5 fights and isn’t ranked in the top 15 at 147. Yeah, I can totally understand that move by Hearn. If I had a vulnerable champion at welterweight, I’d be looking to match him against a fighter with three defeats in his last five fights like Provodnikov. It’s the best way to keep the gravy train going for Hearn.

Provodnikov is ranked in the light welterweight division somehow still despite his many losses, but he’s coming off of a vicious beating at the hands of Lucas Matthysse last April in losing a 12 round majority decision. Provodnikov was also beaten by Chris Algieri last year, and by Bradley and Mauricio Herrera.

Heck, if Hearn is going to match Brook against Provodnikov, he might as well put him in with the guys that whipped him like Algieri or Herrera. I don’t see where the gain is for Brook to be facing Provodnikov and I don’t know how the International Boxing Federation would ever sanction a mismatch like that. Don’t they have standards and requirements that the fighters that challenge for world titles have to be contenders in the division they’re fighting in?

I really don’t like the idea that Provodnikov is coming off of a loss to Matthysse and has been beaten 3 out of his last 5 fights. That’s pretty bad in my book. That’s like Brook facing Jo Jo Dan and/or Frankie Gavin. Both of those fighters had been recently beaten at the time that Brook fought them. Dan had twice been beaten by Selcuk Aysin; whereas Gavin had lost to 40-year-old Leonard Bundu.

Does Hearn comb the welterweight ranks looking for guys that are coming off of a loss or a bunch of losses when he’s looking for an opponent for Brook? I don’t understand the match-making that Hearn has been doing for Brook. I think I understand it.

To me, it looks very calculated where Hearn is matching Brook against weak punchers from the 2nd tier who have recently been beaten. Brook’s win over Shawn Porter last year was tainted in my view due to all the clinching that Brook got away with in that fight without the referee lifting a finger to take points off from Brook for his constant holding.

Brook can face Bradley, but the fight won’t prove a thing because Bradley can’t punch and I see him as a 2nd tier welterweight. He was beaten by Pacquiao, and arguably beaten by Chaves and Provodnikov already. I think Bradley would lose to Porter, Spence, Mayweather, Maidana, Danny Garcia, Khan, Rios, Ali and Ponomarev. Even Lawson might even beat him. Bradley is a flawed fighter who should be fighting in the light welterweight division rather than at 147.

I mean, look at the guy that Bradley defeated to win the vacant WBO 147lb title. He beat Jessie Vargas, a light welterweight instead of a welterweight, and the World Boxing Organization sanctioned the fight for the vacant WBO welterweight title. Believe me, if Bradley had to fight someone with punching power and/or talent like Spence, Porter, Maidana, Thurman, or Garcia, he would have likely been knocked out by all of them.

I don’t think Bradley would have made it the full distance with either of them. That’s why I see him as a paper champion at 147, and that’s why I think Hearn is so keen to match Brook against him. He probably sees what I see when I see Bradley. I’m just wondering how long Hearn is going to wait before he puts Brook in with a good welterweight with punching power that Brook can’t clinch all night long?