By Jeff Aranow: Kell Brook says he wants to get 1 tune-up fight out of the way before he challenges for a world title in 2018 against one of the junior middleweight champions in Jermell Charlo, Jarrett Hurd or Erislandy Lara.
After much deliberation, Brook (36-2, 25 KOs) has decided to follow his promoter Eddie Hearn’s advice and move up to 154 to campaign as a junior middleweight. Brook, 31, just wants to get one warm-up fight out of the way before he goes after one of the champions in that weight class.
Brook fought well through most of his last fight against Errol Spence Jr. on May 27 in Sheffield, England. Brook was injured in round 6 or 7 in suffering a fractured eye socket, and it was all downhill from there. The fight was stopped in the 11th round after Brook took a knee and was subsequently counted out.
“I think I’ll have a meaningful fight, a comeback fight, a warm-up fight, and then we’ll be looking at jumping back on the high horse for a world title,” said Brook to skysports.com. “They are all very good fighters, they’re all world champions, they’re all talented fighters. Once I come back with a win, and my confidence is up there again, I’ll be looking at those names.”
It might be a tad foolish for Brook to fight at 154 given his eye injuries in his last 2 fights. Brook not only suffered a broken eye socket in his fight against Spence, he also had the same injury take place in his fight before that against middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin last year on September in London, UK. The broken eye socket that Brook suffered against Golovkin was to his left eye. It was the opposite eye that was injured in the Spence fight. With the propensity for Brook’s eyes to break down at this point in his career, it would seem like the wrong thing for him to do to move up to 154. That’s asking for trouble.
Jermell Charlo (30-0, 15 KOs) would be an extremely difficult guy for Brook to fight next year. The way Charlo looked in knocking out Erickson Lubin in the 1st round in their fight last month on October 14, it’s possible that Brook wouldn’t last more than a few rounds at best against him.
Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn is very calculating when it comes to the matches he makes for his fighters. Hearn will likely decide that the safest of the 3 junior middleweight champions is Jarrett Hurd. Hearn likely won’t put Brook anywhere near Charlo or Lara right now, because those guys are looking very good right now.
Even Jarrett Hurd would be difficult, because he punches hard and he wears his opponents down with pressure. Hurd took punishment from Austin Trout in the first 6 rounds, and came on strong to batter him until he was pulled out of the fight in the 10th. Hurd would have a good chance of doing the same thing against Brook.
What would be disappointing for Brook is for him to go up to 154, and get knocked out or badly hurt by one of the top fighters in that division. Brook would then need to recover and move back down to 147 to resume fighting in that weight class. It would be better for Brook to swerve the problems that he’ll have at 154 by staying at 147 and continuing in this weight class.