By Scott Gilfoid: Kell Brook says he’ll back in the ring in July against a still to be determined opponent. It’s possible that Brook will be fighting on July 28 unless his promoter Eddie Hearn is going to stage two events in the same month.
Hearn already has July 28 booked for heavyweight contender Dillian Whyte. So, unless Brook (37-2, 26 KOs) is going to be fighting on Whyte’s undercard on that date, Hearn will need to schedule a separate date for him.
Brook is a pay-per-view fighter now. With that said, it’s unlikely he’s going to want to fight on Whyte’s undercard unless he’s facing a real scrub opponent, which won’t be surprising at all. Brook, 31, likely won’t want to risk losing out on the big money Amir Khan fight by taking on a talented champion or contender.
“The news will be soon about a date sometime in July,” Brook said to IFL TV about his next fight.
This will be another tune-up fight for Brook to build his confidence, make him look good in the eyes of the boxing public, and then Hearn will look to match him against Khan later this year. That’s what it’s all about at this point for Brook. Easy fights to help build up the clash with Khan.
The UK fans will still pay to see Brook no matter who Hearn finds for him to fight in July. That’s unfortunate, because there’s no real pressure for Brook to fight anyone good. If the fans are willing to pay to see him fight anybody, then there’s no point for Hearn to find a quality fighter like Jarrett Hurd for him to fight. It’ll be sad if Brook’s next fight is on PPV if all he’s going to be facing is another guy in the same talent class as Rabchenko. The fans deserve better than this, don’t they?
A good fight for Brook to take in July would be IBF/WBA junior middleweight champion Jarrett Hurd (22-0, 15 KOs). The American fighter has called out Brook and offered him a world title shot at his two belts. If Brook wants a shot at Hurd’s two belts, then he needs to accept his challenge and get on with it then. Of course, if Brook doesn’t fancy the fight due to the danger, then he can always have Eddie scour the contender ranks for another beatable guy that he can get a guaranteed win against.
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn’s deal with DAZN starts in September, so Brook’s July fight won’t be a part of that. From the way that Brook wasn’t dropping any hints about his next opponent and bragging, it’s likely that he’s going to fight another weak opponent to pad his record with. Brook is coming off of an easy 2nd round knockout win over fringe contender Sergey Rabchenko (29-3, 22 KOs) on March 3. A lot of boxing fans believed ahead of time that Rabchenko had a real chance of beating Brook, but those same fans had failed to look at his resume to see that he’d been beaten by 43-year-old Anthony Mundine and Tony Harrison in the last four years.
