By Tim Royner: Kell Brook’s next fight date has been officially announced as December 8th in Sheffield, England by his promoter Eddie Hearn.
The opponent for the 32-year-old Brook (37-2, 26 KOs) hasn’t been named as of yet. Hearn is keeping it under his hat about the opponent for Brook. This will be a fight that Brook will be steamed on DAZN in the U.S. Ideally, Brook needs to fight a good opponent if he wants to impress the American boxing fans.
It would be helpful for Brook to face a live body at 154, but the odds of him doing that are low. Brook has a lot of money that he can make fighting Khan in early 2019. Hearn isn’t going to risk that payday going down the drain by putting Kell in with someone good that could potentially beat. It’s bad for the boxing fans that Brook is likely to be fed a weak opponent on December 8, but it’s for the sake of making the Khan-Brook in 2019.
Brook’s career downfall began when he moves up to middleweight to take on former IBF/WBA/WBC 160 lb champion Gennady Golovkin in September 2016. Brook suffered a broken eye socket in the 2nd round. He had to bow out of the fight in the 5th round when he started getting lit up by GGG with power shots. Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle pulled him out of the fight after Golovkin trapped him against the ropes and was hitting him at will with shots.
The fans don’t want to see Brook going back to fighting the likes of Frankie Gavin and Kevin Bizier. Brook has got to raise his game if he wants to interest boxing fans in seeing him fight Khan, who is viewed as a guy that is living off of his accomplishments from seven years ago. Khan’s career hasn’t been the same since he was beaten by Lamont Peterson in 2011 and Danny Garcia in 2012 in consecutive fights.
The only way to interest the boxing fans in seeing Khan and Brook fight each other is if the two of them face quality opposition to build up the fight. That’s probably not going to happen. Much as you want to see Khan and Brook face good opposition to build up their mega-fight in early 2019 on Sky Box Office PPV, at this point in their careers it’s not going to happen. Khan was almost beaten by fringe contender Samuel Vargas in his last fight last September.
The objective for this fight is to give Brook a soft tune-up to get him ready for a mega-bout against Amir Khan in February. Brook isn’t expected to take on a live body for his December 8th fight, but then again, it’s a continuation of the mismatches for him. Earlier this year, Brook had an easy 2nd round knockout win over 2nd tier fighter Sergey Rabchenko.
When Brook moved up to 154 earlier this year, he said he was going to mix it with the big boys in the division. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened. Brook took on a soft opponent in Rabchenko while talking up a fight against Khan, which he’s been salivating over for years. It looks to some like Brook is just interested in a cash out fight with Khan. It’s believed that Brook will retire after he faces Khan.
Save the date! 6 weeks today @SpecialKBrook is back! Big card planned Dec 8 @SheffieldArena – full announcement and on sale next week 👊🏼 @SkySportsBoxing @DAZN_USA pic.twitter.com/DRuwIOVKfL
— Eddie Hearn (@EddieHearn) October 27, 2018
Khan vs. Brook is still a fight that might not get made, as Amir wants the fight to have a 10-lb rehydration clause. Brook is already saying he won’t agree to the rehyration clause, which would limit his ability to balloon up in weight overnight after he makes the 147 lb weigh-in limit. Brook would need to weigh no more than 157 lbs the morning of the fight for the secondary weigh-in, and that’s just not going to happen without him making huge sacrifices in terms of his diet. Brook tends to rehydrate into the 170s for his fights at 147. Brook’s huge size is one of the factors that has made him so successful fighting in the welterweight division. Without the ability to gain all his weight back overnight, Brook will need to wait until the secondary weigh-in is over before he can put the weight back on. It’s not surprising that Brook wants nothing to do with the rehydration clause.
Hearn will likely work his magic to try and come up with a compromise that will make both fighters somewhat happy. Brook won’t get his way of being able to reydrate to the fullest as he would wish overnight, and Khan likely won’t be able to keep Kell from packing on a lot of weight overnight. If Khan and Brook fail to agree to a compromise, then they’ll have to go their separate ways and look to scrape together the best fights possible.
The fact of the matter is neither fighter is capable of beating the best at 147 and 154. Khan hasn’t faced a good welterweight in years since his loss to Danny Garcia in 2012. Brook was beaten by Errol Spence Jr. last year in May 2017, but he suffered an eye injury in the loss. Brook decided it would be better to move up to 154, but he’s failed to take on the best fighters in the weight class. Brook hasn’t shown any interest in fighting WBC junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo and IBF/WBA champion Jarrett Hurd. If Brook does take on a champion at 154 in the future, it’s expected to be WBO champion Jaime Munguia.
Brook’s December 8th opponent will surely be a top 15 contender at 154. It’ll be a recognizable name that the British boxing public has heard of in the past Here’s the likely options that Hearn will be picking from for Brook’s December 8th fight:
– Dennis Hogan
– Sergio Garcia
– Maciej Sulecki
– Austin Trout
– Cedric Vitu
– Patrick Teixeira
– Roberto Garcia
– Ismail Iliev
– Zakaria Attou
– Orlando Fiordigiglio
Brook won’t be fighting contenders Erislandy Lara, Julian ‘J-Rock’ Williams, Erickson Lubin or Carlos Adames. Those guys are too risky for Brook.