By Scott Gilfoid: Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) says he might give IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (35-0, 24 KOs) a fight in 2016, but he thinks that the 29-year-old Brook still needs to start fighting better opposition.
Khan told his promoter Eddie Hearn that he needs start matching Brook against better opposition. But instead of matching Brook against the fighters that he suggested [Tim Bradley, Danny Garcia and Marcos Maidana], Hearn has scheduled Brook to fight Diego Chaves (23-2-1, 19 KOs), a fighter with a 1-2-1 record in his last four fights.
While you can say that Chaves didn’t deserve the loss to Brandon Rios last year, he did deserve to lose to Tim Bradley in their fight last December. That means Chaves’ record in his last four fights should be 2-2 instead of 1-2-1.
We’re still not talking about a great option for Brook. Besides that, Chaves isn’t one of the opponents that Khan asked Brook to fight. Chaves is still pretty much an unknown in the United States when it comes to being recognized by the casual boxing fans.
“Kell Brook is another good name. In 2016 I’ll think he’ll get that fight,” Khan said to skysports.com.” I don’t know much about Diego Chaves, but I know that he’s lost three of his last five fights. He’s really got to up his game and fight the top guys like I do. I wish him all the best and hope he keeps winning. I want to fight these top guys like Timothy Bradley and Marcos Maidana. That makes our fight bigger.”
As you can see, Khan isn’t impressed with Brook’s next opponent Chaves, and he says he needs to up his game. But I don’t see that happening for the remainder of 2015. Hearn is talking about wanting to match Brook against Bradley in the summer of 2016, but it remains to be seen whether that fight will take place.
It might not happen because Top Rank and Bradley will want to make sure they get a fair cut of the revenue for the fight. If Brook and Hearn decide on asking for too much money, then it won’t take place. It’s not as if it will be a big fight anyway. No in the U.S knows who Brook is aside from the hardcore boxing fans, and there are not enough fans that can recognize who Brook is to make it a big fight in the U.S.
In Brook’s recent fights, he’s beaten Frankie Gavin and Jo Jo Dan. Those aren’t big names and they’re not the fighters that Khan told Hearn that he wanted Brook to fight.
There’s going to be a huge imbalance if Khan and Brook fight each other because Khan is recognized by many more boxing fans in the U.S than Brook. If Khan is going to fight Manny Pacquiao in February next year, it’s going to look bad if Brook keeps getting matched against fighters like Jo Jo Dan, Diego Chaves and Frankie Gavin.
Hearn needs to take the training wheels off of Brook and put him in with the likes of Errol Spence, Danny Garcia and Marcos Maidana. If Brook gets beaten, then so be it. At least the fans will know whether he stands.
I just hope that Brook doesn’t wind up clinching Chaves all night long in their fight next month on October 24th at the Sheffield Arena in Sheffield, UK. Brook couldn’t handle the punching and aggressive inside fighting ability of Shawn Porter last year, so he ended up clinching Porter all night long to keep him from throwing punches. I just hope that Brook doesn’t do that with Chaves, because it’s so ugly to watch.
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