By Scott Gilfoid: Promoter Eddie Hearn wants Amir Khan to face Kell Brook after his next fight against Samuel Vargas, even though there’s a good money fight available to him against Manny Pacquiao. Hearn maintains that Khan (32-4, 20 KOs) can make more money fighting Brook (37-2, 26 KOs) than he can facing anyone else in the sport.
Hearn is so jazzed at the idea of matching Khan vs. Brook that he’s already talking about wanting to put them in with each other two to three times. Given the fact that a fight between them has been walked about for the last 10 years without happening, Hearn appears to be getting way ahead of himself.
“The money fight is Brook for both of them,” Eddie Hearn said to Fighthype about the Khan vs. Brook fight. “When I signed Khan, it wasn’t as if the Brook fight was on. Of course, it gives me the opportunity to make the fight that I wanted to for a very long time,” Hearn said.
Hearn should stop thinking so much about himself and focus on Khan’s career. He has an opportunity to fight Pacquiao before he retires from boxing. The Filipino star wants to potentially face Khan in the near future. Whether the fight takes place in the fall or in 2019 remains to be seen. But the fact remains that Khan has a good chance of fighting Pacquiao before he hangs up his gloves permanently. Brook doesn’t have the same opportunity. Pacquiao hasn’t said anything about wanting to fight Brook, only Khan. The choices for Brook are tough ones against WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia, IBF/WBA 154 lb. champ Jarrett Hurd and WBC champion Jermell Charlo. Those three are very tough fights for Brook. He could easily lose all of them and wind up with his career down the drain.
”I’ve got a lot of history with Kell Brook,” Hearn said. ”He’s made a lot of money, but still that’s the fight. Still with Khan, that’s the fight; maybe not worldwide, but in the UK, that’s the fight that people have waited for a long time for so long. After the Errol Spence defeat and after the Canelo fight, it kind of dipped. They’ve both come back with great wins, exciting wins. It’s like, wow, this is still a great fight. So we’ll see,” Hearn said.
Khan and Brook’s recent fights weren’t “great wins,” as Hearn states. They were both mismatches. Khan stopped journeyman Phil Lo Greco in the 1st round last April in a comeback fight after two years out of the ring. Brook defeated fringe contender Sergey Rabchenko by a 2nd round knockout last March. Those were not big enough wins to get the boxing fans in the UK excited about them fighting each other. It’s going to take some real match-making by Hearn for the two of them to get the British boxing public chomping at the bit to see the two of them face each.
Hearn has them currently scheduled against weak opposition like in their previous fight. Brook is scheduled to fight Brandon Cook (20-1, 13 KOs) on July 28. That fight was rumored to have been called off, but it appears that it’s still taking place. For his part, Khan is fighting Samuel Vargas (29-3-2, 14 KOs) on September 8. That’s a mismatch just as bad as Brook’s fight against Cook. Hearn is doing his best to protect Khan and Brook from losing to the better fighters in their respective weight classes.
I don’t think Hearn is going to willingly let Brook fight any of the talented fighters in the 154 lb. weight class like Hurd and Charlo, because he’ll likely lose. Likewise, Hearn is probably going to try and talk Khan out of fighting Pacquiao if the match is offered to him by Manny Pacquiao Promotions. I think there’s a good chance that Khan will have the Pacquiao fight offered to him for November or December. Hearn can talk about how much money Khan can make fighting Brook all he wants.
If Khan has the opportunity to face Pacquiao at the end of the year, he’s going to take it because this may be the only chance he ever gets to make that fight. If Khan passes up on the Pacquiao fight, he’s going to regret it, because this is a legacy fight. Brook isn’t a worldwide star like Pacquiao, and he’s definitely not accomplished anywhere near what he has during his career. At 32, Brook will likely never win another world title unless he can move back down to 147 and go after Pacquiao or WBA Super World welterweight champion Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman. I’m not sure that Brook can beat either of those guys, but he would have a good chance due to his size advantage. As long as Brook isn’t weight drained, he might beat them. Unfortunately for Brook, he says he can’t make 147 any longer, so he’s not going to get a fight against either of them.
”They both do have good options,” Hearn said of Khan and Brook. ”Khan has Errol Spence, Crawford, Pacquiao, Broner and [Danny] Garcia. Kell has Charlo and Hurd, tough fights at 154. Kell Brook is a great fighter, honestly. He boxed Errol Spence with zero in the tank. For six or seven rounds, he was winning nicely in that fight. By the way, Errol Spence is a great fighter. So we’ll see. I want to make the fight,” Hearn said.
The only good option Khan has is Broner and Pacquiao. Those are winnable fights for him. The rest of them are bad options. Khan will struggle and likely lose to Spence, Danny Garcia, Shawn Porter and Terence Crawford. Brook’s option at 154 is a fight against Munguia. That’s a fight that he might win, but it’s not a given. Munguia is huge at 5’11”, and he’s a tremendous puncher. If Brook faces Jermell Charlo or Hurd, I see him losing to both of them. As such, Brook only has Munguia as an option at junior middleweight, and that’s a fight that he has a good chance of losing. Brook has more experience than the 21-year-old Munguia, but he doesn’t possess the size or the power that he possesses.
I think Hearn is getting a little carried away with himself in saying that Brook was “winning nicely” against Spence,” Hearn said. The reality is the Spence vs. Brook fight was even after four rounds, and that was only because Spence was taking his time before ramping up his offense. In the 5th, Spence started to unload with his power shots, and right around that time, Brook suffered an eye injury. It was all Spence from that point on.
”I go to my fighter and say, ‘Here’s the money. Here’s the money for the others,’” Hearn said ”The biggest money is Kell Brook-Amir. Don’t kick yourself one day that you didn’t do the fight. We can do it once. It’s a great fight. We can do it twice. We can do it three times. You never know, but don’t look bad and talk, ‘We should have done that. It’s a legacy fight for the UK as well. That’s important for us Brits. That’s what I’m talking about with Joshua-Wilder. To do an undisputed world heavyweight unification championship in the UK would be a major moment for our country. Joshua knows that as well. Kell Brook is another fight that shouldn’t slip through the net,” Hearn said.
