Just how much has former IBF welterweight champ Kell Brook got left? The 33 year old aims to find out by jumping straight into a big, big fight. Brook, winner of two of his last four, both wins coming on the bounce (though there was a gap of nine months between Brook’s win over Siarhei Rabchanka in March of last year and his win over Michael Zerafa in December), wants Terence Crawford next, or Amir Khan.
Brook, 38-2(26) was supposed to fight TBA on the June 1 Anthony Joshua/Andy Ruiz card in New York but promoter Eddie Hearn has confirmed to Sky Sports how Brook instead wants to “jump into a mega-fight now.”
“He’s not fighting June 1st,” Hearn said of Brook. “He just wants to jump into a mega-fight now. He wants the Terence Crawford fight; we’ll see if the Amir Khan fight can ever materialise. It’s still a big fight, it’s still a fight people want to see. Khan didn’t really take a lot of damage in the Crawford fight, apart from one in the nuts, so we’ll have to see.”
But has Brook taken too much damage in his career? There was the battering he took from middleweight puncher Gennady Golovkin and the facial damage that later required surgery, and then there was the stoppage loss to Errol Spence, a fight that saw Brook’s orbital bones take yet more punishment, and need yet more surgery. Since then, with just those two fights to look at (Brook looking good against Rabchanka, not so good against Zerafa), it’s hard to guess how much Brook has left to offer the sport at top level.
Crawford, who Khan says is struggling for opponents, won’t get much in the way of praise if he does fight Brook next; nor will he get much credit if he beats the Sheffield fighter. The Khan fight might still have some drawing power, but nothing compared to what this genuine grudge-match once enjoyed. But on terms of Brook being able to bag a win, the Khan fight looks to be his better option of the two. How much has Khan got left?
Hearn says he doesn’t think Brook “can get himself motivated for anything else” than a major fight, so it will likely be a big name next or nothing at all. Don’t be surprised if Brook gets that shot at WBO welterweight champ Crawford (though the struggle to make 147 could prove titanic) – unless Khan is, finally, willing to face his former spar-mate.