By Scott Gilfoid: Barry Hearn of Matchroom Sport, the promoters for IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (35-0, 24 KOs), has doubts about #1 WBC, #2 WBA, #3 WBO, #4 IBF welterweight contender Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) wanting a fight against Brook this year.
Hearn sees Khan wasting time chasing fights that aren’t there for him against superstars Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, and he sees it as silly that Khan isn’t taking the fight that is there against Brook. Hearn thinks that Khan can only get $1-1.5 million for his fights in the United States. But if he faces Brook, Hearn thinks Khan could get from 3 to 4 times that amount.
Hearn wants to setup a fight between Khan and Brook on June 4th at the giant Wembley Stadium in London, UK. But it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. It’s already January and there hasn’t been any negotiations for the fight with Khan and Hearn.
“He [Khan] doesn’t want to fight Brook. He was gambling that he’d get a bigger payday but he’ll get a lot of money for fighting Brook – but he may get beaten, and I think he probably will,” Hearn said to skysports.com. “I’m very disappointed because Khan has been almost impossible. He doesn’t seem to want to fight anybody. [Being in America] is an excuse.”
I think it’s a case of Khan now having a lot of different interests now outside of boxing that has his attention. He’s flying everywhere now, and doesn’t appear to have the same interest in the sport that he once had. Boxing is a full time job pretty much. Once you become a part time fighter with a lot of outside interests, you usually lose your skills and start taking losses.
Khan seems like he’s not mentally into the game any longer. Whether he can get interested in the sport again is unknown. I think he wanted a big payday/cash out fight against Mayweather and Pacquiao. Those guys weren’t going to give Khan that payday because he hasn’t done much to increase his star power in the last three years since his loss to Danny Garcia in 2012. After that defeat, Khan stopped taking the risky fights and started taking ones where he was always the favorite going in. Khan didn’t appear to want any of the tough fights against guys like Keith Thurman, Errol Spence, Shawn Porter, Tim Bradley, Danny Garcia or Brook. He just seemed like he wanted that big payday against Pacquiao and Mayweather.
Another day another blessing! pic.twitter.com/xRsgQgjx9Z
— Amir Khan (@AmirKingKhan) January 2, 2016
“I’m getting more optimistic because, one-by-one, all of Khan’s alternatives [are disappearing],” Hearn said.
Khan lost his last chance for a fight against one of the superstars when Pacquiao chose WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley for his next fight on April 9th. Khan might have a very, very slight chance of fighting the winner of that contest, but I’m not betting that it’ll happen. In the meantime, Khan is going to need to start fighting soon because he’s going on one year since he last fought. It’s been eight months since Khan last fought in May against Chris Algieri in a fight that many boxing fans felt that Algieri deserved to win.
You’ve got to figure that even if Khan announced his next fight, he likely wouldn’t be back in the ring by May. I’d very surprised if Khan lined up a fight right now for March or April. I can’t see it. If it someone like Gennady Golovkin, then yeah, you could easily see him back in the ring quickly by March or April to fight a top guy. But with Khan, I don’t see it. He’s been out of the ring so long, and I think he’s going to need a lot of training time to get ready for whoever he picks out. I would say whoever Khan’s management picks out, but I think it’s Khan who is calling the shots in his career nowadays and not doing a good job of it.
Brook has a fight coming up against his IBF mandatory challenger Kevin Bizier in February or March. Brook needs to get that fight out of the way before he can start looking for a fight against Khan.
Hearn might want to forget about Khan for a while and look to start matching Brook against the real talents in the 147lb division instead of pining away for a Khan fight. Errol Spence would jump at the chance to fight Brook right now, and likely beat him with ease. Hearn should set that fight up so that Brook can finally face a talent. Brook won’t be able to clinch his way to victory against Spence because he loves to fight on the inside, and he’ll work one of his hands free from Brook’s grasp and nail him with body shots.
Comments are closed.