IBF welterweight belt holder Kell Brook (33-0, 22 KOs) has targeted February for his next fight date against an opponent still to be determined. Brook was stabbed last September while on holiday in Tenerife, and he’ll be coming back from that injury. Brook wants to fight either Floyd Mayweather Jr or Amir Khan, but those opponents will probably not be in the cards for the 28-year-old Brook.
We’ll likely see Brook facing one of the names that his promoter Eddie Hearn was previously mentioning for him to fight on December 6th before Brook was stabbed and unable to fight on that date. Hearn was talking about matching Brook against a fighter that Americans would recognize like Brandon Rios, Andre Berto or Josesito Lopez.
Not surprisingly, Hearn wasn’t interested in matching Brook against Keith Thurman or Devon Alexander or Keith Thurman. Rios is someone that Brook would likely not get even though it would be a great opportunity for Rios to get a title shot that he clearly doesn’t deserve given his one-sided loss to Manny Pacquiao last November and his subsequent controversial disqualification win over Diego Chaves in his last fight.
Top Rank, the promoter for Rios, might not give the green light a Rios-Brook fight since they’ve got other plans for him such as a third fight against Mike Alvarado.
“I am looking to be ready to fight again in February of next year,” Brook said to the BBC.com.”People want to see Mayweather tested and I am unbeaten. I think that fight needs to happen,” Brook said. “I think me and Khan should fight for the right to take on Mayweather. That is the obvious thing to me.”
To be sure, a Khan-Brook fight would be a good bout for one of them to earn their way to a fight against Mayweather. That would be a great idea, but for it to happen, Khan would need to cancel his plans for fighting on December 6th on Showtime. I’m not sure he’ll agreed to do that. Josesito Lopez, Robert Guerrero and Devon Alexander are three of the potential names that Khan’s adviser Al Haymon is looking at for Khan to fight in December.
If Khan fights in December then he won’t be ready to fight Brook in February. The biggest stumbling block to a Brook-Khan fight taking place in the near future is Khan wanting the Mayweather fight in May. Khan is likely to take it easy in terms of competition until he finds out if he’ll be getting that fight. It obviously doesn’t make sense for Khan to turn down a world title shot against Brook, especially given that Khan has never fought at the full weight at welterweight, but Khan wants the Mayweather fight.
