By Scott Gilfoid: Errol Spence Jr. is a fight that is five times tougher for IBF 147lb champion Kell Brook than a fight against Amir Khan, says Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn. That’s the fight that Hearn and Brook REALLY wanted.
They were hoping that they could get the recently knocked out Khan to fight. Khan wisely turned the Brook fight down, as he was coming off of a bad knockout loss to Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in 2016, and hand surgery as well.
Khan had a perfectly good excuse to give Brook and Hearn for why he didn’t want to take the fight immediately. Instead of Hearn being patient about the Khan fight and understanding his reasoning behind not taking the Brook fight now, he’s been talking about it and making a fuss. It obviously is inconvenient for Brook and Hearn that Khan decided not to take the fight now with them, because it means that they have to face Spence and that might not turn out well for them.
The Brook vs. Spence fight still doesn’t have an actual date and venue for the fight yet, although Hearn is talking about wanting it to take place on May 27 at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England.
“The Amir Khan fight was there on a plate,” Hearn told Sky Sports News HQ. “Let me tell you, this fight is five times tougher than Amir Khan, and this isn’t really about the money for Kell Brook. He has been called out that he would duck this fight against Errol Spence, particularly by Amir Khan, and he says no, that’s not my style, I’m fighting Errol Spence in front of my people. I’m going to defend my belt with pride and honor.”
Hearn makes a big deal about Brook defending his IBF title against Spence, but isn’t that what champions are supposed to do? Aren’t they supposed to be defending their titles against all comers? Brook has taken it easy since he won the IBF title by a controversial decision over Shawn Porter in 2014. Since getting a hold of the IBF title, Brook has defended the belt against these contenders: Jo Jo Dan, Frankie Gavin and Kevin Bizier.
Those fighters are nowhere to be seen in the welterweight rankings now. None of them are ranked in the top 15. They’re all second tier fighters now. In my view, Jo Jo Dan Bizier and Gavin should have never been ranked in the top 15 to begin with. The fact that Brook was able to defend his IBF title against those guys was a piece a cake for him.
The International Boxing Federation had those three ranked in their top 15. Now all of a sudden the IBF ranks a talented fighter in Spence at No.1, and Brook has a very serious fight on his hands. This is really just the second quality fighter that Brook has faced during his career at 147. You can’t count Golovkin, because he’s a middleweight. I’m talking about 147lb fighters. The only good fighters that Brook has faced thus far have been Shawn Porter. If you see the Porter-Brook fight, you’ll know that Brook held him all night long because he didn’t have the boxing skills to fight him on the inside, which is where Porter wanted the fight to take place.
“Khan is a very good fighter, but he knows he will get beaten by Brook and when he gets knocked out by Brook that’s the end of it,” said Hearn. “We have been waiting a long time for this fight and we can’t base our career around him.”
Hearn sounds like he’s too needy when it comes to the Khan fight. Instead of harping about how Khan won’t fight Brook, he should be doing his job as a promoter to match him against the best fighters to increase his popularity. If Brook were facing all the top fighters in the 147lb division and beating them, then Khan would definitely fight him.
The issue that Khan has had with Brook is the fact that he’s fought mostly mediocre fighters during his career at 147. If you look at Brook’s resume, he just has the Shawn Porter fight to show for himself at 147. The rest of the guys are poor opposition. Yeah, Brook moved up to 160 to fight Gennady Golovkin last September, but that was a no lose situation for him due to the payday and the fact that he was moving up two divisions.
Brook was never going to take heat from the boxing fans by moving up two divisions to face a talented fighter like Golovkin. There was no way that Brook could lose out in a fight like that. With Brook’s trainer Ingle throwing in the towel in round 5 when he was starting to get worked over, he made it to where Brook wouldn’t be seen getting chopped down the way normal fighters do when they’ve met their match.
It looked very strange. Brook ran around the ring for four rounds, landing shots here and there against Golovkin, but as soon as he was trapped and hurt by a body shot in round 5 from Golovkin, the fight was stopped. The ending looked extremely strange to say the least. All I can hope is that the Brook-Spence fight doesn’t have an equally weird ending.
It would be a pity for the boxing fans to see Brook run around the ring for four or five rounds, and then have the fight stopped by his trainer when he starts getting worked over by Spence in round five. Brook needs to go out on his shied rather than being pulled out of the fight. I’m just saying. There will be a mess of Brook’s fans that will show up to see him fight Spence at Bramall Lane in Sheffield on the night. the fans won’t like to see Brook pulled out of the fight at the first hint of trouble.
The best thing for Brook and Hearn to do moving forward is to forget about Khan, and instead focus on fighting the best guys I whatever division he’s going to fight in. If Brook needs to move up to 154 after a potential knock out loss to Spence, then he should do so and focus on fighting the best guys in that division rather than the weak fighters that he’s been facing at 147.
Brook has been a pro for 13 years, and the only two good fighters that he has on his resume are Shawn Porter and Gennady Golovkin. The rest of the guys Brook has fought have been poor opponents. How does a fighter go through 13 years as a pro without fighting at least five high caliber fighters? I don’t understand it. But if Brook and Hearn wants to bellyache about why Khan hasn’t chosen to fight them, then they need to look in the mirror at themselves to take the blame.