By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn is intrigued by the latest news coming from Amir Khan about him wanting to take a stay busy tune-up fight against the recently knocked out Kell Brook for March or April. Khan is interested in fighting the 30-year-old Brook, who was bludgeoned in five rounds last September by middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, to get ready for a match against the winner of the Keith Thurman vs. Danny Garcia fight. However, a fight between Khan (31-4, 19 KOs) and Brook (36-1, 25 KOs) might not work with Wembley Stadium for their vacancies around that same time.
IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua will be fighting Wladimir Klitschko at Wembley Stadium on April 29. Hearn is talking about wanting to stage the Khan vs. Brook fight up North in the UK. It would have to be a large venue wherever the Khan vs. Brook fight takes place.
Hearn said this to skysports.com about a fight between Khan and Brook in 2017:
“I think they are looking at the end of May and they only day we have here is June 4,” said Hearn about a fight at Wembley Stadium in 2017 between Khan and Brook. “I try not to get too excited and we try to keep the talks going behind closed doors, and hopefully we can get it over the line.”
If Hearn is going to commit Brook to the Khan fight, then he’s going to need to make a decision what to do with Brook’s IBF welterweight title. He’s supposed to be defending his title against mandatory challenger Errol Spence Jr. (21-0, 18 KOs) in the first quarter of 2017. There’s a purse bid taking place on February 25 for the Brook-Spence Jr. fight. If Brook chooses to fight Khan, then he’s going to have to give up his IBF title, because the fight between him and Spence has already been ordered.
Hearn can obviously try and work his magic by talking to the International Boxing Federation to see if they’ll let him bypass the talented 26-year-old Spence. I doubt that’s going to work though. The IBF will likely stay firm for that fight happening.
If Brook is as good as Hearn thinks he is, then he should have no problem vacating his IBF title, beating Khan, and then coming back to fight Spence for the belt. After all, Hearn is saying that Brook is the best welterweight division. If Hearn believes that, then giving up the IBF title should be no-brainer for Brook. You take the Khan fight and the huge career payday that comes with it, and then swoop back later to snatch the IBF belt or the WBA/WBC titles from the winner of the Danny Garcia vs. Keith Thurman fight, which takes place in March.
Of course, if Hearn has some doubts whether Brook has the talent to beat Spence and the winner of the Garcia-Thurman fight, then maybe it would be best just to have him vacate his IBF belt and take the Khan payday and then forget about coming back to face those talented fighters. Brook could always retire off the money he makes for the Khan fight. Brook could retire with one loss on his record if he beats Khan.
“It might be a fight to take up north, because obviously you’ve got (David) Haye-(Tony) Bellew and Joshua-Klitschko here, so I think maybe that’s a time to take one up north for later in the year,” said Hearn.
Hearn has his fighter cruiserweight Tony Bellew moving up to fight heavyweight David Haye on March 4 at the O2 Arena in London, England. On April 29, Joshua fights Klitschko at the Wembley Stadium.
Khan, 30, wants to fight in March or April. I doubt that he’s just going to sit around until later in the year for a fight against Brook. Khan needs to get back inside the ring soon to resume his career, and I doubt that he’s going to waste the entire year waiting to get the Brook fight. Khan sees the Brook as a tune-up fight to get him ready for the winner of the Thurman-Garcia match. If Khan spends too much time on the Brook fight, then he won’t be free to fight the winner of the Thurman vs. Garcia fight. Khan wants to be the one that faces the winner. He won’t be able to do that if he eats up the entire 2017 year waiting for a stay busy fight against Brook.
It’s debatable how much interest that would be there from the British boxing public for a fight between two recently knocked out welterweights in Khan and Brook. Both of them were stopped. Khan was knocked cold in the 6th round by Saul Canelo Alvarez last May, while Brook was stopped in the 5th by middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin last May.
Granted, Brook and Khan were knocked out by middleweights, they were still seen getting beaten. Do the fans forget about those losses and happily purchase tickets and buy the Khan-Brook fight on Sky Box Office PPV or do they see the fight as just a match-up between two fading welterweights heading downhill? Brook has only lost once in his career against Golovkin, but he’s also never really fought any huge talents during his entire 12-year pro career.
The toughest welterweight that Brook fought was Shawn Porter, who Brook had to hold all night long to win a very close 12 round decision in 2014. Brook had to hold numerous times in each round to smother Porter’s offense. It wasn’t pretty to watch. If there had been a referee working that fight that actively enforced the excessive clinching rule, Brook clearly would have lost the fight, because Porter was being held each time he got within punching range. The holding strategy that Brook used against Porter would likely be a fail against the top welterweights in the division in Errol Spence Jr., Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman, Manny Pacquiao, Tim Bradley and Jessie Vargas.
Hearn might be better off sticking the Brook vs. Khan fight in a smaller venue in the UK rather than at Wembley Stadium. I think that venue might be a little too large for a fight like that. Khan-Brook would likely do well in a smaller 20,000 seat venue. Hearn could then market the fight to the hilt to create news interest from the boxing fans to get them to sellout the venue and purchase the fight on Sky Box Office.