Hearn says Khan-Brook could take place this summer

By Boxing News - 12/03/2015 - Comments

hearn54By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn says he thinks Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) will be facing his fighter IBF welterweight champion Kell “Special K” Brook (35-0, 24 KOs) this coming summer in 2016.

Even Khan himself is saying he’ll be fighting Brook if he can’t get the fight that he’s been talking about wanting to get against Manny Pacquiao. Since it doesn’t look like Khan is going to be getting that fight, he’s kind of stuck with Brook as his only option for a big money fight.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. already put Khan on permanent ignore by retiring without fighting him, and Pacquiao is about to do the same by likely fighting one of his 83-year-old promoter Bob Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters for his final fight in April.

Man, Hearn has been yapping about wanting to put together a fight between Brook and Khan since he took over as Brook’s promoter five years ago. It’s as if no other fight out there exists for Hearn but the Brook vs. Khan fight.

I’m just wondering what Hearn will do once the fight is over with. Will he cry about wanting a second and third fight between them, or will he finally quiet down and look to match Brook against some of the really talented welterweights like Errol Spence, Keith Thurman, Adrien Broner or Tim Bradley.

Hearn isn’t going to have much more time to stall on the Brook vs. Spence fight because Spence is about to become Brook’s mandatory challenger, and once that happens, I think Brook’s short title reign as the IBF 147lb champion will be over with.

Spence is a future superstar in the view of a lot of boxing fans; whereas Brook is arguably an average junior middleweight who drains down in weight to make the 147lb limit. Once Brook starts fighting in his natural weight class at 154, I see him getting beaten by the Charlo brothers and out-boxed by Erislandy Lara.

“If Manny chooses someone else, I’ll fight Brook. I know I can beat him and it should be at Wembley in late May,” Khan said via thestar.co.uk.

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The fact that even Khan is now talking about wanting to fight Brook tells you how desperate he’s getting for a money fight. Heck, Khan has been putting off the Brook fight for ages now, because he wanted to go after the big names in Mayweather and Pacquiao. Khan felt that he deserved to be in the same class as those two fighters for some reason.

Khan clearly didn’t want to do the hard work that those guys did by taking on the tough opposition like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Miguel Cotto. Instead of facing those guys to try and earn a shot at Mayweather and Pacquiao, Khan opted to fight Luis Collazo, Devon Alexander, little 5’5” Carlos Molina, Julio Diaz and Chris Algieri.

To say that Khan went about it the wrong way to get a big money fight against Mayweather and Pacquiao is putting it lightly. Khan chose the easy path to try and get a fight against those superstars, and he failed miserably at getting the fights. I don’t think Khan ever had a true chance of getting Pacquiao in the ring though.

When Khan signed with Al Haymon, then that probably undermined his own efforts at getting a fight against the Filipino star. I think Khan would have been better off signing with a British promoter like Hearn if he wanted a fight against Pacquiao.

Brook has a title defense that he needs to get out of the way in early 2016, provided his injured ribs heal. Brook was supposed to fight #4 IBF Diego Chaves this year, but the injury caused that fight to be postponed.

It’s now looking like Brook will be defending his IBF title next against #5 IBF Kevin Bizier, which is a similar opponent to Brook’s last two badly over-matched opponents in Frankie Gavin and Jo Jo Dan. In fact, Bizier lost two to Jo Jo Dan. Why the International Boxing Federation would select Bizier as Brook’s next opponent is unclear, because he’s not a great option.

Spence will get his chance at the IBF title by either late 2016 or sometime in 2017, depending on if the Brook vs. Khan winner chooses to dodge the fight for as long as possible.



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