Khan-Brook: Will fans lose interest if Spence beats Brook?

By Scott Gilfoid: Kell Brook and his promoter Eddie Hearn tried like mad to get Amir Khan to agree to a fight in the first half of 2017, but he chose to put the match off and encourage him to fight Errol Spence Jr. instead. Brook appears on the verge of finally agreeing to the Spence fight after months of what some boxing fans saw as stalling.

There is a purse bid for the Brook vs. Spence fight scheduled a week from now on February 14. The original purse bid was scheduled for February 7 for the Brook-Spence fight. They hope to have a deal made before the February 14th purse bid, but you never know. It wouldn’t be surprising if there is another postponement.

Brook will likely still be very interested in fighting Khan no matter what happens in the Spence fight. If Brook loses really badly to Spence like he did against Gennady Golovkin, it’s unclear whether the boxing fans will still want to see the fight.

The Khan-Brook fight would still interest some fans, but you would have to assume that a lot of people would no longer care about it. After all, Brook will have lost his last two fights at that point, and it would appear that he’s no longer going anywhere in the sport other than just being one of the many contenders.

Junior Witter thinks that Khan and Brook absolutely need to fight each other. Witter wanted to fight Ricky Hatton for many years, but the match was never made. Hatton had other options at the world stage, and he just didn’t fancy the fight enough to want to make it.

Witter’s constant talking about wanting to fight Hatton may have undermined his own cause, because it seemed to work against him getting the fight. In hindsight, if Witter had kept quiet about his interest in fighting Hatton, then he might have wound up getting the fight. Brook might be in the same boat as Witter. He’s done so much talking about the Khan fight that it has come across like he’s ready needy.

Instead of Brook making a name for himself like Khan by facing the best welterweights, he’s mostly taken it easy by fighting the lesser named contenders and a lot of domestic level fighters. As of now, Brook has only fought two well-known fighter during his 13-year pro career in Gennady Golovkin and Shawn Porter. Brook is about to face arguably the most dangerous welterweight in his career in Errol Spence, and we’re not even sure if he’s going to take that fight. Until the contract is signed for the fight, nothing is certain.

“That’s a grudge match that just hasn’t died and needs to be laid to rest,” said Witter to skysports.com. “It’s a fight that should happen and could have happened already. It’s time for them two to get it on,” said Witter.

I don’t know if the Khan-Brook fight will be worth much if Brook gets whipped by Spence. I know that Brook can come back from a knockout loss to Spence, but the only way to comeback in the real sense is for Brook to take some meaningful scalps against talented fighters at 147 or 154.

I don’t know that Brook has the talent to beat any good fighters at 154. From the way he’s bellyaching about having a hard time making 147, I think he’s going to move up to junior middleweight after the Spence fight unless he wins, which I don’t see happening.

Khan might go ahead and give Brook the fight even if he gets knocked out by Spence in the first half of 2017. Unless Brook fights bravely against Spence in the process of losing the fight, I don’t see the British fans being too interested in seeing Khan and Brook fight each other in 2017.

I think Brook would need to do a certain amount of rebuilding of his career before he could recapture the interest from the boxing fans in a fight against Khan. If he just goes ahead and taking the fight with Khan if it’s offered straightaway, then I think that would be seen as a cash out fight by the fans, and they would have lukewarm interest in the fight.

The thing is, I don’t know that Brook has the talent to rebuild his career if/when he gets knocked out by Spence. If Brook moves up to 154 and beats some bottom feeders in the division, it’s not going to impress the fans. The only thing that’s going to impress the fans in my opinion is if Brook moves up to 154 and beats one or more of the following fighters: Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Erislandy Lara, Julian “J-Rock” Williams and Jermell Charlo. Those are the quality fighters at junior middleweight. Beating Liam Smith or Liam Williams probably won’t be nearly enough for Brook to make the boxing fans forget about him being stopped in back to back fights against Spence and Golovkin.

To come back from those losses, Brook is going to probably need to do something dramatic like beating the Charlos, Lara, Julian Williams or Andrade. I do not see Brook having the talent to beat any of those guys – ever. I mean, Brook could run around the ring and try and land some pot shots here and there for brief spurts in each round, but I see those guys as too strong and too talented for him to win.

The only thing that I can see Brook doing is annoying them briefly like a pesky fly that’s buzzing around until they swat it. That’s basically what Golovkin did. Brook was more of an annoyance than a real threat, and Golovkin put him out of his misery when he finally caught up to him in the 5th.

It’s unfortunate that a lot of the interest in the Brook-Khan fight will die down if Brook gets smashed by Spence, because it’s a fight that could have and should happened a long time ago. I think the main reason the fight didn’t happen was there was an imbalance between what Khan was doing with his career and what Brook was doing. Khan noticed that Brook wasn’t facing the big names in the 147lb division.

While Khan was risking his hide fighting the likes of Marcos Maidana, Danny Garcia, Zab Judah, Luis Collazo and Paulie Malignaggi, Brook was padding his record with fights against the likes of Hector Saldivia, Matthew Hatton, Carson Jones, Frankie Gavin, Jo Jo Dan and Kevin Bizier. If Brook had been fighting the big names from day one, I think Khan would have fought him a long time ago.

It’s unfortunate that Brook is 30-years-old and is only now starting to fight the good fighters in the sport. He fought Golovkin, and he didn’t really give a good account of himself due to him choosing to stay on his bike the entire. It would have been extremely interesting to see how the fight would have played out if Brook had planted his feet in the center of the ring and chosen to fight Golovkin until the bitter end instead of running around the ring trying to avoid him.

Maybe Brook would have still lost, but he at least would have gone out like a hero. It was a missed opportunity for Brook. If he had made sure he told his trainer NOT to throw in the towel at first signs of trouble, then he could have gone out like a hero. Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Bernard Hopkins did not like the way that Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle threw in the towel. They felt that Brook should have been able to try and fight his way out of his difficult spot in the 5th round in the same way he had gotten out of trouble in round 1 after Golovkin staggered him with a left hook to the head.