Eddie Hearn: ‘Now or never’ for Khan-Brook fight

Amir Khan and Kell Brook have been circling one another in the media for years now, and following this past Satruday’s fight in Birmingham where Khan was able to beat Samuel Vargas, the potential fight is once again in the news.

Matchroom Boxing’s Eddie Hearn, who promotes both fighters, says that the clock is ticking on the scrap, which would be big money in the United Kingdom.

“It’s down to those guys, I think Khan has made it clear he wants Pacquiao or Brook. … It has to happen next or it will never happen, so it’s up to these guys. There’s only so much we can do. We will listen to the public, we know Amir wants Pacquiao and he will fight Brook. It’s now or never for the Kell Brook fight.”

To me, Hearn doesn’t sound especially confident in Khan (33-4, 20 KO) and Brook (37-2, 26 KO) actually getting into the ring with each other, but I could be wrong.

Admitting that, though, I also don’t think it would surprise anyone to suggest that Amir would probably rather fight Manny Pacquiao (60-7-2, 39 KO), who holds the WBA “world” welterweight title and is a true legend of the sport. Internationally, it’s just a much bigger fight.

There’s also the issue of weight. Brook says he can get back to 147, but there are doubts about that, and Khan just had to strip bare to make that weight for the first time since 2015, but he’s insistent that he wants to fight at welterweight.

Maybe this is just one that wasn’t meant to be. Or maybe it’ll happen next. It’s hard to tell with boxing, and this is a case where it really seems like it could go either way. There’s nothing necessarily preventing it from happening, at least as far as promotional and political stuff goes, but there are still some potential issues.