By Robert Addams: Kell Brook will be emerging from a year-long layoff potentially to fight on December 7 on the Anthony Joshua vs. Andy Ruiz Jr. rematch in Saudi Arabia. Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn says he’s possible for the Joshua-Ruiz undercard. If not, then he’ll fight on another date against an opponent still to be determined before the end of the year.
The good news is Brook (38-2, 26 KOs) is back in training after having sat out of the ring since his unimpressive 12 round unanimous decision win over Michael Zerafa on December 8 last year. Brook had problems with Zerafa’s punching power, and general toughness.
Zerafa took everything Brook dished out, and was able to land a lot of heavy shots. Even though Zerafa was over-matched, his ability to stay in there, and land shots made him competitive with Brook. The scorecard showed a different fight from the ones that boxing fans witnessed. It looked like a close contest, but the judges scored it 118-110, 119-109 and 117-111. Boxing News 24 had Brook edging it by a 115-113 score.
Brook vs. Amir Khan possible for early 2020
Hearn says he plans on putting together the blockbuster fight between Brook and Amir Khan in the first of 2020. We’ll have to see if that’s a reality or not, Khan has been reluctant to take that fight. He has hopes of fighting for a world title against WBA welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao. The Filipino star hasn’t said yet who he plans on fighting in his first defense of his WBA belt, but he has plenty of options to him.
👀👀 @SpecialKBrook back in training
Who would you like him to fight? pic.twitter.com/wm3AmHiBBu
— Sky Sports Boxing (@SkySportsBoxing) September 6, 2019
Khan (34-5, 21 KOs) rebounded from his 6th round stoppage loss to WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford last April to defeat super featherweight Billy Dib by a 4th round knockout last July. The win was a shot in the arm for Khan, who hasn’t been particularly active, and has frozen out his career by not fighting.
Brook has hurt his career with inactivity
The way Brook has responded to injury stoppage losses to Gennady Golovkin and Errol Spence Jr. has been nothing short of odd. Brook made the mistake of moving up to middleweight to challenge former IBF/WBA/WBC 160-lb champion Gennady Golovkin in 2016. After suffering an eye injury in losing to GGG by a 5th round knockout, Brook returned from eight-month layoff to defend his IBF welterweight title against Spence. It the wrong thing for Brook to do, as Spence is not the type of fighter that you fight after a long layoff involving an injury.
After Brook’s 11th round injured related stoppage loss to Spence in May 2017, he stayed out of the ring for 10 months before returning to defeat Sergey Rabchenko by a 2nd round knockout in March 2018. Nine months later, a rusty and lethargic Brook struggled to defeat junior middleweight fringe contender Zerafa by a 12 round decision. Since that win, Brook has been out of the ring for the last 9 months. With no fight scheduled, Brook is expected to be back in December. It’ll have been 12 months since Brook last fought. Obviously, Brook wouldn’t do this if he hadn’t made a lot of money already during his career. If he were just a regular fighter trying to make ends meet, Brook would have likely been back fighting again ages ago.