By Scott Gilfoid: IBF welterweight champion Kell “The Special One” Brook (35-0, 24 KOs) is under the belief that WBA/WBC 147lb champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) is taking a safe fight by facing former IBF/WBC 147lb champion Andre Berto (30-3, 23 KOs) in their fight on Showtime pay-per-view this Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Brook, 29, says he would have liked to have been the one facing Mayweather in this fight instead of the 31-year-old Berto.
I don’t how Brook has the nerve to say that Mayweather is taking a soft opponent when Brook has faced largely soft opposition for much of his career. I mean, I only rate one of Brook’s 35 opponents as being a good fighter, and that was Shawn Porter. The rest of the guys that Brook has fought has been far, far worse than Berto in my view. We’re talking about guys like Jo Jo Dan, Frankie Gavin, Alvaro Robles, Vyacheslav Senchenko, Hector David Saldivia, Carson Jones. These guys are six of Brook’s last seven opponents. It’s just so sad.
“I think Mayweather has played it safe by fighting Berto in this fight,” Brook said to skysports.com. “Mayweather is fighting Andre Berto and he’s hardly looked fantastic in his last few fights.”
Gosh, Brook sure does sound like he’s got sour grapes, doesn’t he? Brook sounds almost like he’s jealous of Berto getting the fight with Mayweather instead of him. but how in the heck can Mayweather pick an obscure fighter like Brook when the American boxing public have no clue on earth who Brook is?
You can’t blame Mayweather for picking a guy like Berto instead of someone like Brook or Amir Khan. Mayweather obviously selected Berto for domestic consumption. The casual boxing fans clearly know who Berto is, because his fights have been televised on a routine basis since 2006. The last time I checked, Brook and Khan have only had their fights televised in the United States fairly recently. It’s not as if they’ve been visible to the casual fans of the sport in America.
“Like every top welterweight out there, I would love to share the ring with Floyd Mayweather,” Brook said. “He [Mayweather] has been world champion and credit to him he’s still a good fighter.”
Brook only has himself to blame for not getting a fight against Mayweather. If Brook had started fighting quality opposition years ago, he would likely would have already fought him by now. Heck, Brook has been a pro for the past 11 years. It’s not as if he just started fighting recently.
The problem is Brook has wasted most of his career fighting fodder level opposition instead of the guys that he needed to fight to get the attention of the American fans and Mayweather. Had Brook been fighting the likes of Keith Thurman, Porter, Marcos Maidana, Berto, Zab Judah, Danny Garcia, Lucas Matthysse, Ruslan Provodnikov, Lamont Peterson, Tim Bradley and Brandon Rios years ago, he wouldn’t likely be sounding like he’s got sour grapes.
If Brook wants to start getting the big names like Khan to fight him, then he needs to lean on his promoter Eddie Hearn and tell him to stop putting him in with soft opposition, because he’s wasting his time fighting guys like Jo Jo Dan, Gavin, and Chaves. Brook needs to be facing better opposition. Chaves has a record of 1-2-1 in his last four fights. I have no clue why or how he was selected for Brook to fight with a record like that, but I’m definitely not surprised at all that he’s getting the fight rather than someone dangerous like Thurman, Maidana, Bradley, Rios or Porter.
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