By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn believes that IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter’s fighting style is absolutely perfect for his fighter #1 IBF Kell Brook (32-0, 22 KOs) to knock him out in their fight next month on August 16th at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
Hearn acknowledges that Brook is facing his best opponent of his career in 26-year-old Porter, but he believes that Brook has the gears to shift though to still beat him.
By Matt Plumridge: Hailing from the small island that is the UK we have some good things going for us. Everyone knows or has met the Beatles or the Queen; we like to drink our cups of tea; we stand in line, even when trying to escape from disaster; we all carry around giant red telephone boxes instead of smart phones and very, very occasionally we have a boxer that is ready to head over to the grand old US of A and show you people how to box.
In recent years the UK alumni has included such fistic exponents as Prince Naseem Hamed, Ricky Hatton, Joe Calzaghe, Lennox Lewis and most recently, Amir Khan. When this article is reprinted in about 5 years’ time – due to huge public demand no doubt – it will also include the graduation of a Special K, Ezekiel “Kell” Brook.
By Scott Gilfoid: Eddie Hearn is feeling ultra-confident that Kell Brook (32-0, 22 KO’s) will bag his first big win of his long 10-year career in his title challenge against IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (24-0-1, 15 KOs) on August 16h.
Hearn thinks he has the stronger fighter and the bigger guy, and that’s why he thinks that Brook will give Porter his first defeat of his career.
Having seen Brook’s last two fights against Alvaro Robles and Vyacheslav Senchenko, I wasn’t too impressed with what I saw from Brook in those fights. He proved to be easy to hit, and not much in the way of thinking on his feet. Senchenko had Brook staggering around, and Robles was hitting him at will. Luckily for Brook that Robles wasn’t a big puncher and that he was only 5’6”, because if the guy was bigger and stronger, he might have pulled off an upset in that fight.
By Scott Gilfoid: Well, it looks like #1 IBF Kell Brook (32-0, 22 KO’s) has finally got his fight against IBF welterweight champ Shawn Porter (24-0-1, 15 KO’s). Dan Rafael of ESPN is saying that the Brook-Porter fight will be taking place on August 16th at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
The card included a rematch between WBC super middleweight champion Sakio Bika and #5 WBC Anthony Dirrell. The card will be televised by Showtime.
By Scott Gilfoid: IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (24-0-1, 15 KO’s) has signed for his title defense against #1 IBF Kell Brook (32-0, 22 KO’s), and they’re now looking at one of two dates in September for the fight to take place in either September 6th or the 16th. The venue will obviously be in the United States, because there’s no way that Porter, the champion, is going to fight in the UK to accommodate Brook and his fans.
It’s going to be a fight where Brook is going to have to travel for one of the rare occasions in his career, and he’s going to have to deal with not being the one cheered constantly during the fight like he normally is when fighting at home in Sheffield.
By Scott Gilfoid: #1 IBF Kell Brook (32-0, 22 KO’s) will be fighting for a world title on August 9th against IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (24-0-1, 15 KO’s) at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. This is Brook’s moment in the sun, because he blew his chance a year ago for a title shot against former IBF 147-pound champion Devon Alexander when his body kept breaking down on him during training camp with him suffering one injury after another.
Whether the cause of the injury was just bad luck or perhaps the stress of the moment getting to him, it’s unclear. But Brook is now getting another chance at the IBF belt, and he can’t afford to blow it this time.
By Scott Gilfoid: Dominic Ingle, the trainer for No.1 IBF Kell Brook (32-0, 22 KO’s), thinks that his fighter will be able to halt the attacks from IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (24-0-1, 15 KO’s) in their fight on August 9th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Ingle believes that Porter’s high pressure offense and his attempts and taking advantage of Brook on the inside [where he has little skills] will be ultimately fruitless, because Brook will catch Porter with jabs and straight right hands that will stop him in his tracks to keep him from getting to Brook’s soft underbelly.
By Scott Gilfoid: A deal has been reached between IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (24-0-1, 15 KO’s) and his #1 IBF mandatory challenger Kell Brook (34-0, 22 KO’s) for August 9th in New York, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. This means there’s just a little over 2 months to go before the two fighters will need to step inside the ring to face each other. Hopefully for both of their sake they’ve been training already for the fight because 2 months isn’t a great deal of time to train for a fight.
“IBF says deal has been reached for @ShowtimeShawnP [Porter] vs @SpecialKBrook and it will be Aug. 9 in NYC,” Rafael said on his twitter.
This will be the second time for the 28-year-old Brook to be in position for a world title fight.
By Scott Gilfoid: Amir Khan doesn’t see a fight between IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (24-0-1, 15 KO’s) and #1 IBF Kell Brook (32-0, 22 KO’s) will take place in July, as the International Boxing Federation has ordered. Khan believes that Brook doesn’t have the stomach for the fight after watching the magnificent job that Porter did on Paulie Malignaggi in stopping him in 4th round last April.
“Brook-Porter is not going to happen because Kell doesn’t think he can win it,” Khan said via BBC Sport. “I don’t think Kell has got the bottle to take a big fight like that; he’s always been all talk when it comes to the big fights. Some fighters are like that.”
By Damien Dennis: It has been almost a month now since Shawn Porter (24-0-1) with only 15 knockouts defeated the light fisted journeyman Paulie Malignaggi (33-6) in a one sided optional first defense of his IBF welterweight title. Even though the talented Kell Brook (32-0) with a massive 22 knockouts, has been in a mandatory position for that title for a very long time now, Porter’s anxious team decided to take an easy first defense against a boxer with little or no punching power but who also happened to be from the U.S.A.
In the aftermath of the lop-sided mismatched Malignaggi brawl I expected terms between the accomplished Brook and Porter to be worked out smoothly and quickly. However, nearly a month later and there has been little or no news from either camp. This has led to a lot of speculation as to why the fight hasn’t been penciled into the calendar seeing as the IBF had originally stated that the skilled Brook would get his shot by the end of July.