By Tim Royner: Amir Khan isn’t giving up on his insistence that Kell Brook agree to a 10 pound rehydration limit for their fight at 147 pounds in January or February 2019.
Khan, 31, says he’s not going to fight Brook (37-2, 26 KOs) unless he agrees to the 10 lb rehydration rule, which means the 32-year-old Kell would have to weigh no more than 157 pounds for the morning secondary weigh-in on the day of the fight. For a fighter that typically rehydrates into the 170s for his fights at welterweight, it would be a major obstacle that would prevent him from winning the fight, and Brook seems to know that. Brook moved up in weight to 154 for his last fight against Sergey Rabchenko last March due to his struggles to make the 147 lb weight limit. Brook lost his last fight at 147 in a title defense against Errol Spence Jr. last year in May 2017. Spence, 28, also rehydrates into the 170s, but he doesn’t complain about it like Brook.
Khan said this on his Twitter on Friday:
“2nd day weigh In. Brook fought under IBF 10lb rule for few fights. I want the brook fight at 147lbs with a 10lb rehydration limit. All the top fights do it. Give the fans the fight they want.”
Given that Brook feels drained when he’s fighting at 147, then he shouldn’t be fighting a guy as small as Khan (33-4 20 KOs). It’s as simple as that. If Brook can’t fight at the weight and agree to the 10 lb rehydration clause in the contract that Khan is asking for, then he needs to move on and fight guys his own size in the 154 lb weight class like Jermell Charlo, Jarrett Hurd, Erislandy Lara and Jaime Munguia. Brook can fight those guys at 154, and rehydrate as much as he likes for the fights. Of course, the money won’t be the same as it would be if Brook fought Khan, but he would be getting his wish to gain back as much as he wanted to. It just looks like Brook doesn’t understand that he can’t game the system by picking out a smaller fighter than him in Khan, and then beating him by having a 10 to 20 lb weight advantage over him on the night. It would be totally unfair for Khan to agree to a fight against an opponent that was outweighing him by such a substantial margin. It’s a terrible match-up for Khan either way, but it’s much worse if he has to fight Brook with him weighing 170 to 180 lbs on the night. If Khan rehydrates to just 155 lbs, he’ll likely be crushed by Brook if he comes into the fight at 175. The average fan doesn’t realize how difficult it is for fighters to compete against an opponent that outweighs them by 15 to 20 pounds. It means a lot when the two fighters are in the 147 and 154 pound weight classes respectively. Being outweighed by your opponent by 20 pounds is a big deal, believe me.
It’s starting to sound like the Khan vs. Brook fight won’t get made. As long as Brook insists on being able to rehydrate as much as he’d like, it’s unlikely that Amir is going to agree to this. Since it’s Brook who wants the fight, he needs to make up his mind whether he wants to get the big payday that comes with fighting Khan or if he wants to risk his neck fighting the lions in the junior middleweight division for a lot less money. Brook won’t have the size advantage over the powerful and huge junior middleweights like Erislandy Lara, Jarrett Hurd, Jaime Munguia and Jermell Charlo. Those would be fights in which Brook would take punishment, risk injury, and make less money than what he’d get fighting Khan. If Brook was a sure thing to beat those guys, then it wouldn’t be a big deal for him not to get the Khan fight, because he could go ahead and fight them and take their titles. Unfortunately, Brook hasn’t shown the type of talent that would indicate that he’s going to be able to hang with those guys without getting injured, knocked out or forced to quit like he did against Spence and GGG.
Khan and Brook sound like they have a dilemma. If Khan agrees to let Brook rehydrate as much as he wants without a rehydration limit, then there’s a high possibility that he’ll be outweighed by 10 to 15 pounds on the night of the fight. That might not seem like a big deal to Brook, because he’s the one that would be enjoying the weight advatage, but it would surely make it difficult for Khan, who would be fighting a middleweight for all intents and purposes.
When Brook fought middleweight Gennady Golovkin in 2016, he was worn down by his size and punching power. Even though Brook weighed roughly the same amount as Golovkin, he was broken down by the Kazakhstan fighter until he literally quit fighting back in the 5th round, forcing his trainer to throw in the towel to save him. If Brook had to fight someone with a 10 to 15 pound weight advantage over him like Callum Smith or David Benavidez, he would likely be broken apart after five or six rounds. For that reason, you can understand why Khan wants Brook to be limited in how much weight he can gain back after the weigh-in on the day before the fight, because he had a bad experience when he took on middleweight Saul Canelo Alvarez in 2016 in getting knocked out in the 6th round.
It would be a good idea for Brook to move on and face Jermell Charlo or Jarrett Hurd, because he’s never going to get Khan to agree to let him rehydrate to light heavyweight on the night. If Brook doesn’t fancy the idea of fighting guys his own size at junior middleweight, then he needs to retire or melt back down to 147 to continue competing in that weight class. For some reason, Brook doesn’t seem to be too eager about fighting the Charlos, Hurd and Lara. As such, he might have to give Khan what he wants in terms of the 10 lb rehydration clause that he’s asking for.