Jarrett Hurd offers Kell Brook a world title shot

By Boxing News - 05/16/2018 - Comments

Image: Jarrett Hurd offers Kell Brook a world title shot

By Scott Gilfoid: After hearing some of Kell Brook’s negative comments about him, unbeaten IBF/IBO/WBA junior middleweight champion Jarrett ‘Swift’ Hurd (22-0, 15 KOs) says he’d like to give him a title shot and let him prove that he’s better than him. Hurd notes that Brook is kind of small for a junior middleweight, but he’s still willing to defend his three titles against him.

Hurd, 6’1”, is coming off of a 12 round split decision win over WBA Super World 154lb champion Erislandy Lara on April 7 in a unification fight. It was a tough fight for Hurd, but pulled it out by coming on strong in the last four rounds. Lara completely wilted under the pressure from the 27-year-old Hurd in the 12th and was lucky not to have been knocked out in the fight.

“I was watching a few interviews on YouTube with Kell Brook saying a few things like ‘the kid Hurd’s not that good’, and he’d fight me if there was a belt on the line,” Hurd said to skysports.com. “Not only does he say he would fight me if there was one belt on the line because I am no good, well I’ve got three belts. If he wants to show he is up for the challenge, I’ve got the opportunity for him.”

Oh boy, Hurd sounds like he’s hopping mad, doesn’t he? He wants to fight Brook (37-2, 26 KOs) and hand him another loss he won’t soon forget. Unfortunately, Brook and his promoter Eddie Hearn are not likely to accept the fight with Hurd. The reason for that is they’re still waiting on the Amir Khan fight for later this year, and they’re not going to mess it up by taking on Hurd. I mean, I think Brook would take the fight in a second if Hurd’s talent level was identical to his last opponent Sergey Rabchenko, who he knocked out in the 2nd round on March 3.

If Hurd was a paper champion with talent equivalent of someone like Rabchenko or former WBO 154lb champion Sadam Ali, it would be almost academic that the fight would be made almost immediately. The fact is Hurd isn’t a pushover. He’s a not a stiff, and Brook can’t count on fighting Hurd with the certainty that he’s going to have his hand raised at the end.

It’s more likely that if Brook fights Hurd, he’ll suffer his third knockout loss in his last four fights, and it’ll impossible at that point to sell a fight between him and Khan on Sky Box Office PPV. It’s unbelievable that a fight between Khan and Brook would sell at all at this point, given their recent misfortunes inside the ring. Khan, 31, was knocked out in the 6th round by Saul Canelo Alvarez in May 2016. That was a bad knockout for Khan. Brook was stopped by Gennady Golovkin in the 5th round in September 2016, and then by Errol Spence Jr. by an 11th round knockout in May 2017.

There’s so much money for Brook to make fighting Khan. He’s not put that money in jeopardy by challenging Hurd for his junior middleweight titles.

Brook probably wasn’t too happy see WBO junior middleweight champion Sadam Ali knocked out in the 4th round last Saturday night by Jaime Munguia. It was believed that Brook was targeting Ali for his WBO title. But now that Ali has lost. Brook is right back where he started from with no clear path to a winnable title at 154.