IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook’s promoters at Matchroom Sport are hoping to put together a fight between Brook and former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) in the summer on June 4th at Wembley Stadium, in London, England. The chances for the Khan vs. Brook fight increased dramatically this past week with 37-year-old Manny Pacquiao agreeing to fight WBO welterweight champ Tim “Desert Storm” Bradley on April 9.
Khan was one of the three candidates for the Pacquiao fight, and he’d been sitting out of the ring for the past six months waiting to find out if he would get the fight or not. Now that Khan has been removed from the possibility to get the big money Pacquiao fight, it leaves only Brook as Khan’s best chance for a big payday, which he seems to really want.
“I’m getting more optimistic because, one-by-one, all of Khan’s alternatives [are disappearing],” Matchroom Sport promoter Barry Hearn said to skysports.com. “He doesn’t want to fight Brook. He was gambling that he’d get a bigger payday but he’ll get a lot of money for fighting Brook – but he may get beaten, and I think he probably will.”
Khan has said all along that he’s interested in facing Brook, but he wanted a chance to see if he could get one of the legends of the sport to face him first before he fought Brook. As old as Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. are, it made perfectly good sense for Khan to target them first rather than take a risky fight against Brook first for lesser money.
Khan wanted Brook and Matchroom Sport to help build up their fight more by Brook facing some of the bigger names in the welterweight division like Keith Thurman, Marcos Maidana, Tim Bradley and Danny Garcia, but Brook and Matchroom haven’t followed Khan’s instructions. Instead of Brook fighting those big names, he’s been facing fighters like Jo Jo Dan, and Frankie Gavin lately. Brook will next be fighting Kevin Bizier, who the IBF ordered him to face.
“Khan has been almost impossible. He doesn’t seem to want to fight anybody. [Being in America] is an excuse,” Hear said. “You have to be realistic and live in the real world. He spent 18 months chasing Floyd Mayweather without one per cent chance of ever fighting Floyd Mayweather. Then he spent six months chasing Manny Pacquiao.”
Khan’s back is against the wall now that Pacquiao has chosen another fight to face in April. Khan now has little choice but to take the Brook fight unless he wants to continue fighting guys like Luis Collazo, Chris Algieri and Devon Alexander.
