Kell Brook – Kevin Bizier deal reached today, purse bid cancelled

By Boxing News - 01/11/2016 - Comments

brook67By Scott Gilfoid: A deal has been reached between the promoters for IBF welterweight champion Kell “Special K” Brook (35-0, 24 KOs) and mandatory challenger Kevin Bizier (25-2, 17 KOs) to avoid a purse bid that was scheduled for Tuesday. The purse bid has now been cancelled due to the agreement.

According to Dan Rafael, Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn will be staging the Brook vs. Bizier fight in the UK. The date and the venue for the fight will be announced this week.

Since the announcement of the cancellation of the Brook-Bizier purse bid, there has been a great deal of negativity about the fight from boxing fans, who largely see it as another mismatch setup by Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn to try and prop him up and make him look better than he actually is.

In fairness to Brook and Hearn, they have no choice but to take this fight because it’s been ordered by the International Boxing Federation, given that the 31-year-old Bizier is Brook’s mandatory challenger. What hurts Brook is that he’s faced a lot of gawd awful fodder opposition recently in beating fellow Matchroom Sport fringe contender Frankie Gavin in his last fight in May of last year, and before that defeating Jo Jo Dan, another arguably mediocre fighter that the IBF had ranked at No.1 for some unknown reason. Jo Jo Dan is the same fighter that had been twice beaten by Selcuk Aydin, and yet the IBF still ranked Jo Jo as No.1 after the losses.

“Deal reached today for Special K Brook vs mandatory Kevin Bizier and purse bid scheduled for Tuesday has been canceled. @EddieHearn #boxing,” Rafael said on his Twitter. “Per Eddie Hearn, Special K Brook vs. Bizier mandatory will take place in UK. Wow, the Twitter reaction to Brook-Bizier is about as bad as I have seen for a fight being made in a while.”

It’s going to be interesting to see what kind of crowd Brook vs. Bizier can pull in. My guess is Hearn will stage the fight in Sheffield like usual, and count on Brook’s loyal fan following wanting to see him in another mismatch. I don’t know why the fans would want to bother seeing a mismatch like that, but it’s a fight that Brook can’t help but to look good in.

The good news is that Brook could be facing Amir Khan at some point in 2016, so at least that will be an interesting fight. Khan has been keeping a low profile lately in not speaking much with the media, but it’s likely that he will be taking the Brook fight this year. If not, then I guess we’ll see Brook matched against another fodder opponent by Hearn. The mismatches can’t go on forever though.

Errol Spence Jr., one of the most talented fighters in the welterweight division, is within one win of becoming Brook’s new IBF mandatory challenger. As such, Brook will likely need to face Spence by 2017 or else give up his IBF strap. Spence is not the type of fighter that can be beaten by endless clinching, like we saw in Brook’s ugly to watch controversial 12 round majority decision win over Shawn Porter in August 2014 in capturing the IBF 147lb title.

If Brook wants to beat Spence, he’ll actually need to fight him and out-slug him, which I don’t think he’ll be able to do. I see Brook getting knocked out by Spence when/if that fight happens. It won’t be the end of Brook’s career though, because he’ll be able to go after the other welterweight champions or move up to junior middleweight to try and get a fight against WBO 154lb champion Liam Smith, who some boxing fans see as a weak paper champion.



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