Kell Brook’s next fight will be announced next week, says Hearn

By Jeff Sorby - 12/30/2014 - Comments

IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn says he’ll be announcing Brook’s next fight next week. Brook plans on fighting in March of 2015, and one possible opponent is his IBF mandatory challenger Jo Jo Dan (34-2, 18 KOs). This would enable Brook to take a nice stay busy fight because Dan has very little punching power to speak of, and he’s a big step down from Brook’s last opponent Shawn Porter.

Hearn says that he has some other fighters that he’s looking at as a potential opponent for Brook. However, Hearn seems to be leaning in the direction of making the Brook-Dan fight now. Hearn said that he’d like to try and match Brook with Floyd Mayweather Jr later in the year in September 2015.

That’s obviously why it’s important for Brook to get the title defense against Jo Jo Dan out of the way now, because if he takes an optional title defense in March, then Brook will get stuck facing Dan later in the year and that’ll tie his hands.

“We don’t have to fight in March because he just had a tough fight,” Hearn said to IFL TV about Brook possibly defending his title against his IBF mandatory challenger Jo Jo Dan in March. “We may get that out of the way, but we’re still looking at other options. Kell’s next fight will be announced next week. So mandatory [defense] maybe,” Hearn said.

Jo Jo Dan is coming off an impressive 12 round split decision win over fringe contender Kevin Bizier in their rematch this month. The two fighters went life and death in this fight, and in their previous fight in 2013, which Dan also won. Dan was previously beaten by Selcuk Aydin in 2011, which kind of tells you all you need to know about Dan. Aydin also beat Dan in 2010.

What’s kind of surprising is that the International Boxing Federation ranked Dan high enough for him to fight in an IBF eliminator bout against Bizier, because you can make a strong argument that neither of these guys should have been fighting in an eliminator.

The IBF has Dan ranked higher than Tim Bradley, Shawn Porter, Devon Alexander and Robert Guerrero. I don’t know that Dan could beat any of those guys. The IBF also has Bizier ranked higher than Porter and Guerrero, and I seriously doubt that Bizier would beat either of those guys.

Hearn would like to match Brook up with Amir Khan if possible. However, Khan says he’s focused on trying to get a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao. Until he’s exhausted his efforts at getting a fight against those guys, he intends on keeping the Brook fight on the shelf.