(Photo credit: Hogan Photos) By M.Malik: We are hearing plenty of conflicting statements in regards to the negotiations between Amir Khan and Kell Brook’s team. It seems that attempts to finalize the fight have once again hit a wall, and the blame game is on full throttle.
In short, Amir Khan feels that he deserves the lion share of the purse, and while Kell Brook’s promoter is willing to give him the higher cut (60/40), he is not willing to do the 80/20 that has reportedly been requested by Khan’s team.
Kell Brook’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, repeatedly highlights the fact that Kell is the champion and Khan should happily take the fight. As a boxing fan, I would love to see the fight. I am just not happy with how Kell Brook and his team are deluding the facts.
First of all, they have been promising big fights for Kell Brook for years. It took him 33 fights to step up to the plate to fight Shawn Porter, and keep in mind; Kell was the mandatory and didn’t have much choice. After winning the fight, his first two defenses came against Jo Jo Dan and Frankie Gavin as he now prepares to take on Kevin Bizier in his third defense. Win or lose, at least Khan has names like Garcia, Maidana, Peterson, Judah on his resume. One name that is worth mentioning on Kell Brook’s resume is Shawn Porter, and in my opinion, that was a boring clinch fest.
Kell Brook didn’t do anything special for me get excited about his next fight.
Understandably, Kell sees Khan as a shortcut to stardom, and you can’t blame him at the end of the day. What I would like to see him do is fight someone who poses a little risk for a change and put Khan under pressure to take the fight. Their whole press conference was about Amir Khan when it should’ve been about Kell’s next opponent.
Eddie Hearn keeps saying that Khan is too scared to lose to Kell Brook because that would end his career. It is definitely a close fight, and even if Khan lost, I think Khan could still get fights against the likes Lamont Peterson, Victor Ortiz, Brandon Rios and Ruslan Provodnikov on a major network in the U.S. and put himself in the position to resurrect his career. Can you say the same for Kell Brook? I don’t see him getting big fights in the U.S. after losing to Khan. He is hardly known in the U.S. right now. He will continue to fight domestically for much smaller purses. And that’s the reason Kell Brook hasn’t been matched with anyone dangerous. His career could end even before taking off!
The IBF belt that Eddie Hearn keeps talking about is not the deciding factor. The fact of the matter is that the title doesn’t mean much in this case. Adrien Broner won the WBA belt by beating Khabib Allakhverdiev who was inactive for 15 months and lost his last fight to Jessie Vargas. Adrien Broner was also coming off a loss to Shawn Porter. The titles don’t always depict the true significance.
Amir Khan and Kell Brook have a history, and at the end of the day, most people would tune in because it would be a competitive fight and the winner would get the bragging rights. Moreover, If Khan decides to go in a different direction, the Kell Brook fight will always be there for him. He could go after Danny Garcia, Lamont Peterson, and Adrien Broner in the future, and the Kell Brook fight could get even bigger. Meanwhile, I would love to see Kell Brook take on some big names for a change and see how good he really is.
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