By Scott Gilfoid: Eddie Hearn revealed this weekend that he wants to make Amir Khan vs. Kell Brook on December 8 on pay-per-view for the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. This is the same venue that Hearn has twice had heavyweight world champion Anthony Joshua fight in the past against Joseph Parker and Carlos Takam.
”December 8, Brook-Khan,” Hearn said to IFL TV in discussing when he plans on making Khan vs. Brook.
The injury prone Brook, 32, recently pulled out of his fight against Brandon Cook recently for their canceled July 28 fight at the O2 Arena in London, UK. Brook’s injury problems make him a real risk for any fight that he’s scheduled. If Hearn is going to insist on making the Brook vs. Khan (32-4, 20 KOs) fight for December 8, then he should have a nice backup opponent available that he can match Khan against when/if Kell breaks down in training camp. I’m just saying.
This is the fight that Hearn has wanted to make for the longest time, and he doesn’t seem to care that the match has passed its expiration date. The only boxing fans that are interested in the Brook-Khan fight nowadays are old timers, who remember the two of them back before they were viewed as shot fighters like many fans see them as now. I hate to say it but I think the PPV numbers and the ticket sales for the Khan-Brook fight will be disappointing.
Hearn seems to be stuck in the past going on about how he believes Khan vs. Brook will be a huge money fight. I don’t think the fight is going to be one-fourth the fight that it was once when Brook was a paper champion, and Khan briefly one of the world champions a 140. Heck, both guys were little more than paper champions in their respective divisions. Brook was never the guy at 147, and it was the same for Khan at 140. They were briefly belt holders, who failed to beat the top dogs when they finally stepped it up in class.
Khan vs. Brook isn’t the fight that it once was now that the two of them are in their early 30s, and no longer world champions. The increasingly fragile Brook’s career is very uncertain now that he’s moved up to 154 following back to back stoppage losses to Errol Spence Jr. and Gennady Golovkin. Brook suffered eye injuries in both of those fights that required surgery to repair. Although Brook bounced back from the losses in beating fringe contender Sergey Rabchenko last March.
Hearn says he thinks it’ll be great if WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder faces former unified champion Tyson Fury. Hearn sees it as a positive thing because it’ll make for a bigger fight for his fighter Anthony Joshua when it comes to him matching him against the winner.
”It’ll be great if they [Fury and Wilder] fight,” Hearn said. ”Just imagine how big it would be with AJ [Joshua] against the winner,” Hearn added.
Well, yeah, it would be a bigger fight for Joshua to face the winner of the Fury vs. Wilder fight if Hearn were able to negotiate it, but unfortunately I don’t see that happening. With Hearn’s flat fee offers, he’s not going to get Fury or Wilder to ever agree to the chickenfeed that he’s offering them. I mean, I think Hearn could get Fury or Wilder to agree to a fight against Joshua with a flat fee offer if it’s in the $50 million range. Hearn is NOT going to get Wilder and Fury to agree to a fight against Joshua with flat fee offers of $12-15 million. Perhaps if Hearn can get some help in negotiations for the Joshua-Wilder and
Joshua-Fury fights, he might be able to successfully negotiate the fights. But since he’s offering flat fees to Wilder, you have to assume that he’s going to fail when it comes to restart the negotiations. I don’t think for a second that Hearn will have any luck negotiating the Fury vs. Joshua fight. It’s probably going to be the same boat with Hearn offering Fury a flat fee that represents a small percentage of the eventual revenue for the fight, and he’ll likely walk way in disgust.