By Tim Royner: Amir Khan says he’s gotten an agreement from Kell Brook to fight him at 147 pounds with a 10-pound rehydration clause for a fight in 2019.
Getting Brook to agree to the rehydration limit will keep him potentially from having a big weight advantage over Khan on the night of the fight. Brook will need to find another way to win if he can’t use his weight to smash Khan to bits. Brook has looked so big in his fights during the last several years. It’s going to be tough for him if he has to keep his weight below 160 lbs on the day of the fight. It doesn’t matter that Brook will still be able to rehyrate fully after he makes weight for the secondary weigh-in on the day of the fight, it’s still going to be a hardship for him to make the weight.
Khan doesn’t want to face Brook (37-2, 26 KOs) in the tail end of 2018, because the long training camp and the time it would require to promote the fight according to Sky Sports. There’s not enough time for the two fighters to adequately get ready for a fight in December.
There’s also a lot of big fights that are taking place in December that would crowd out a fight between Khan (33-4, 20 KOs) and Brook. The good news is Khan is finally willing to face Brook. That’s the most important thing right now, as Khan hasn’t been interested in making the fight with Brook until now.
Some boxing fans believe that Khan’s sudden interest in facing Brook is the realization that the fight could be ruined if he loses before they meet. Khan was hurt repeatedly by fringe contender Samuel Vargas last month in their fight on September 8 in Birmingham. Although Khan won the fight by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision, it was a closer fight than the scores turned in by the three judges. Khan was hurt by Vargas’ shots, and there were a couple of moments during the fight where there was a possibility of a big upset. Khan not being able to dominate a limited fighter like Vargas showed that he can’t be trusted to beat even fringe level oppositions.
“Nothing can stop it. He’s agreed to be 147, and also have a rehydration clause of 10 pounds,” Khan said to skysports.com. ”I’m happy with that…That fight can happen then 147 it is, and we’re with the same promotional team, so that makes the fight even easier. Let’s see what happens.”
Having the 32-year-old Brook agree to boil down to 147 lbs is a victory in itself for Khan, since Kell hasn’t fought at welterweight for a year and a half since his 11th round knockout loss to Errol Spence Jr. in May 2017. Brook suffered an eye injury in the Spence fight, which kept him out of action for 10 months since he wiped out Sergey Rabchenko at 154 last March in Sheffield.
Brook has now been out of the ring for seven months since the Rabchenko fight, and it appears that he’s done for the year. That’s not good for Brook, as he’s been fighting sparingly since 2016 due to his injury problems to his eyes that he suffered in his fights against Gennady Golovkin and Spence. The other huge gift Khan got in his negotiations with Brook was having him agree to a 10 pound rehydration clause. That was huge victory for Khan, because Brook walks around at 180+ lbs in between fights. On the condition that Brook has to keep his rehydrated weight at no more than 157 lbs on the morning of the Khan fight, it’s going to be a hardship for him to keep from ballooning up to 170+ lbs overnight after he weighs in.
Brook will likely still end up weighing close to 170 lbs on the night of the fight with Khan, but he could be in bad shape from having to delay rehydrating until after the secondary weigh-in in the morning on fight day. However, Brook will be banking on being able to knockout Khan before he starts feeling the negative effects of the rehyration clause. When a fighter is weight drained, they often feel it in the second half of their fights. Brook’s punching power is so good that he could KO Khan in the early rounds before he starts having problems with his energy stores.
Brook agreeing to the 147 pounds weight limit without a catchweight shows how badly he wants the Khan fight. You would think that Brook could have gotten a better deal if he negotiated in a tougher manner by insisting that they at least meet halfway at 150 lbs. Khan getting Brook to agree to the 147 lb limit at the 10 lb rehydration clause is stacking the deck in his favor. It would be interesting to know what the purse split is for the fight because it looks like Khan is getting all the advantages for the fight. Brook is a popular enough fighter to get things in his favor.
Khan and Brook have both been trying to get a fight against WBA ‘regular’ welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao, but with no luck. It appears that the 39-year-old Pacquiao is holding out for a mega-payday in a rematch with Floyd Mayweather Jr. That fight could take place in 2019. Pacquiao would be taking a major risk fighting Khan and Brook, as both of them are still roughly in their primes and have the kind of talent that that would give the Filipino star problems. Pacquiao would have been a good payday for Khan or Brook to take before they face each other in 2019, but unfortunately there’s no interest in a fight against either of them on the former eight division world champion’s side.
Hearn wanted to have Khan-Brook take place in December in a stadium, but Khan nixed that idea due to him wanting the mega-clash to take place in 2019 so that he could have more time training and marketing the fight. In truth, Khan vs. Brook doesn’t need a lot of time to market it. The fight is going to be huge even without a ton of promotional work put into it. If Khan and Brook want to get the most money out of their fight, they should try and squeeze in one more tune-up before the end of the year so that they can be seen by the boxing fans. If they can fight on the same card in December, it would be a big plus in helping to make their fight in 2019 a bigger affair.
“We want to make it the biggest fight probably in Britain for a long time,” Khan said. ‘The way we do that is by promoting it the right way, and having a good training camp, so that way, there are no excuses.”