By Scott Gilfoid: It looks to some boxing fans that Kell Brook is only holding onto his IBF welterweight title as a fishing lure to try and get WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao to fight him in a unification match. You can argue that Brook probably would have vacated his IBF title by now, but it seems like he’s holding onto the belt because it gives him a better chance of getting a fight against Pacquiao.
I personally don’t see Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum caring about putting him in a unification fight against Brook. It probably wouldn’t matter if Brook had three titles in his possession right now. His problem is he’s not with Top Rank, and for that reason, I don’t see Arum matching Pacquiao up against him.
With Pacquiao being near the end of his career, I think Arum is going to match him only against his own Top Rank fighter unless Floyd Mayweather Jr. comes out of retirement to fight him. Besides, Brook has a bad habit of holding a lot of running around the ring. It would be a bad idea to put Pacquiao in the ring with a runner or clincher. In this case, Brook is both of those things.
It almost seems to me like Brook is only holding onto the IBF title to try and entice Pacquiao, Danny Garcia or Keith Thurman. I think it would be a cash out fight for Brook. Brook is supposed to be defending his IBF title against his mandatory Errol Spence Jr.
The fact that Brook isn’t getting that fight out of the way leaves me to think that either he or his promoter Eddie Hearn lack the confidence that he can get the job done against Spence.
Brook is supposed to have been moving up to 154lb division after his loss to middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin last September.
At least that’s what Brook was saying he was going to do. He said he wanted to campaign as a junior middleweight division because it was too hard for him to make weight for the 147lb division. Brook said he wanted to clean out the 154lb division. However, now it’s up in the air whether Brook has any real intentions of moving to junior middleweight, because he lacks the size, power, and the speed to compete against the talented fighters in that weight class.
If you put Brook in with the following 154lb fighters, I think it would end badly for him: Erislandy Lara, Jermall Charlo, Julian “J-Rock” Williams, Saul Canelo Alvarez, Austin Trout, Jermell Charlo and Demetrius Andrade. Even some of the normal contenders would be a real nightmare for Brook. I’m talking about Erickson Lubin, Jarrett Hurd, Vanes Martirosyan, John Jackson, Miguel Cotto, Liam Williams, Tony Harrison, and Willie Nelson, Michael Soro.
It’s pretty obvious to me that Brook is not going to be successful if/when he moves up to the 154lb division, which is why I think he’s trying so hard to get a fight against one of the welterweight champions. It would be a cash out fight for Brook.
Once he loses to the likes of Pacquiao, Garcia or Thurman, Brook would then move up to junior middleweight and likely struggle badly against the top fighters in that division. Brook’s problem is he’s too heavy for the 147lb division, but not big enough to beat the beat 154lb fighters.
Brook would be smaller than most of the top guys like Julian Williams, Lubin, Lara, and Andrade. Canelo is the same height as Brook, but he tends to rehydrate a great deal in ballooning up into the 170s or possibly even the 180s. Brook wouldn’t be able to compete against a guy like that.
Out of all the guys that Brook might have a chance of beating at 154, Miguel Cotto would be someone that he could possibly beat if he got on his bike and stayed on the move for 12 rounds. If Brook got scoring of the fight like he did in his fight against Golovkin, then there would be a chance of him potentially winning a controversial decision over him.
It’ll be bad news for Brook if he’s forced to move up in weight without getting a big money fight against one of the top welterweights. Other than Canelo and Cotto, there are no big money fights that await Brook in the junior middleweight division. If he can’t get either one of them to fight him, then he might be stuck having to fight Spence and hoping things work out for him.
Brook wants the fight against welterweight Amir Khan
“With got some big names, Amir Khandashian, he’s still there,” Brook said to Sky Sports News HQ.
Brook is trying real hard to get the Khan fight, but he doesn’t seem interested in fighting him yet. Khan seems to be saving the Brook fight towards the end when he has no other options in his boxing career. Right now, Khan has potential options in fighting the winner of the Danny Garcia vs. Keith Thurman fight, or maybe getting a fight against Pacquiao if he can convince his 84-year-old promoter Bob Arum to allow him to fight a rare fight against someone outside of his Top Rank stable.
Since Brook isn’t likely to get the Khan fight, he needs to get his mandatory out of the way by fighting Spence. Brook had no problems fighting his previous mandatory challenger in Kevin Bizier and Jo Jo Dan, both of which were very beatable fighters. But now all of a sudden with their being a talented fighter in Spence, Brook is taking his time about making a decision whether he’ll take the fight with him or not.
Brook should just give up on the idea of fighting Pacquiao because I don’t see that happening in this lifetime. Brook needs to increase his popularity the old fashioned way by going tout and looking to accomplish something big by facing Errol Spence and beating him. If Brook beats Spence without holding or running from him, then his stock will go way up and he’ll then have the other top fighters trying to get a fight against him.
Right now, Brook has only had two tough fights during his career – Shawn Porter and Golovkin – and his record is 1-1 in those fights. Brook needs to build up his career the right way by taking on and beating the talented fighters rather than just looking for a cash out fight.