Kell Brook vs. Brandon Cook on July 28 on Sky Box Office PPV

By Scott Gilfoid: Kell Brook will be next fighting on July 28 against fringe junior middleweight contender Brandon Cook in a title eliminator on the undercard of the heavyweight clash between Dillian Whyte and former WBO champion Joseph Parker on Sky Box Office at the O2 Arena in London, England. Cook (20-1, 13 KOs).

Recently, Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn said that Kell’s July opponent would be a step up in class from his last fight against Sergey Rabchenko. Unfortunately, it looks like Brook (37-2, 26 KOs) is stepping down in class a notch in taking on the 31-year-old Cook, because he’s definitely not a step up from Rabchenko, who he stepped in the 2nd round last March. Cook has only taken on one contender during his entire seven-year pro career in facing Kanat Islam in September 2017, and he was stopped in the 9th round in a one-sided fight. It wasn’t even close. Islam had his way with Cook in trouncing him.

“July 28 is a huge night of boxing with a brilliant 50-50 heavyweight match-up and a stacked card beneath it,” said Eddie Hearn to skysports.com. ”Kell is back at the scene of his epic shootout with Gennady Golovkin to face highly-ranked Canadian Brandon Cook in a world title eliminator that will put him in pole position for a shot at all the world champions.”

The card is NOT a pay-per-view worthy card unfortunately. Whyte isn’t a PPV fighter, and his match against Parker is clearly not a big enough fight to warrant charging the boxing fans to see it in my opinion. Brook vs. Cook is a mismatch, and a horrible one at that. What’s disappointing is the winner of the Brook-Cook fight will be the secondary World Boxing Organization 154lb mandatory challenger to WBO champion Jaimie Munguia. Cook is ranked #4 WBO and Brook #6 WBO.

It appears that Brook is being angled to fight against arguably the weakest of the junior middleweight champions in 21-year-old Munguia instead of the better champions like WBC belt holder Jermell Charlo or IBF/WBA champion Jarrett Hurd. It’s clear that Brook is being steered away from Hurd and Charlo, and the reasons are obvious. Brook would probably lose badly against both of them. So, the thought is to angle Brook against Munguia and hope that he doesn’t get wiped out like Sadam Ali was recently by him. Personally, I see Munguia stopping Brook as easy as he did Sadam in their recent fight on May 12. If Brook ever faces Charlo or Hurd, he’s going to get smashed to bits.

It looks like Eddie Hearn is trying to keep Brook winning long enough for him to get the cash out fight against Amir Khan. After Brook beats Khan, then Hearn will get him a fight against Munguia for the WBO title. As I mentioned, I see Brook losing to Munguia, but if he somehow wins that fight, then he’ll likely milk the WBO title for as long as possible against the contenders in the WBO’s rankings. I don’t see Hearn putting Brook in a unification fight against the other champions, because it would be the end of the show. Hearn can keep the revenue stream going by matching Brook against the contenders in the WBO’s rankings. Heck, I would’t be surprised if Hearn sets up a rematch between Brook and Khan in order to get two PPV fights between them.

Welterweight prospect Conor Benn (12-0, 9 KOs) will be fighting a rematch against 32-year-old journeyman Cedrick Peynaud (6-5-3, 4 KOs) in hopes that he shows improvement over their previous fight last December. Benn was dropped twice by Peynaud in round 1. Although Brook was able to come on and dropped Peynaud twice in the later rounds in the 5th and 6th, it was still a very hard fight for him. Benn was hurt a number of times by Peynaud before he gassed out. That performance showed that Benn is not going to be a future world champion. His career will be at the domestic level, and he’s going to have major problems beating even though type of fighters. Benn doesn’t have the talent of his famous father Nigel Benn, who was simply a better fighter in every way.

Dillian Whyte (23-1, 17 KOs) surprised a lot of boxing fans in turning down title eliminators against Kubrat Pulev and Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz in order to take on Parker on July in hopes of doing a better job beating him than IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua did last March in Cardiff, Wales. I don’t think it’s possible to draw an accurate comparison from the two fights, as the variables are

different. Joshua fought Parker with a referee that prevented Parker from fighting on the inside by pulling him away when he was trying to work in close. Parker was literally forced to fight on the outside against a fighter with a six inch reach advantage over him. As such, it wasn’t a fair fight. When Whyte faces Parker, it’s highly unlikely the referee will prevent Parker from fighting on the inside like the referee that worked the Joshua-Parker fight did. So, it’s going to be impossible to say that Whyte is better than Joshua if he beats Parker, because it’s not going to be the same referee.

Whyte, 30, will have a two inch reach advantage over Parker in this fight, but without a referee that prevents any kind of in fighting, it’s going to be a much different contest than the Parker-Joshua fight was. I suspect Parker is going to beat up Whyte and possibly stop him if he chooses not to move a lot. If Parker takes the fight to Whyte on the inside, then he’ll win as long as he’s not being held and stalled out. I wouldn’t put it past Whyte to grab and hold Parker all night long to keep him from fighting in close, because he’s not as talented on the inside.

“There’s going to be blood, pain and a knockout. I’m bang up for this,” said Whyte to skysports.com.

The other fights on the Whyte vs. Parker card are as follows:

– Katie Taylor vs. Kimberly Connor

– Joshua Buatsi vs. Ricky Summers

– Daniyar Yeleussinov vs. TBA

All of these fights are mismatches with the A-side fighter having a huge advantage over their opponents. Brook is going to destroy Cook, 2016 Olympic gold medalist Yeleussinov will beat the brakes off whomever he’s matched against, Buatsi will destroys Summers and Taylor will smash Connor. In a PPV cards, there’s supposed to be competitive matches that interest the boxing fans. I don’t see that here. The entire card is nothing but mismatches with the exception of the Whyte vs. Parker fight. I’m not sure whether Parker will get a fair shake if the fight goes to the scorecards. I’m just hoping we don’t see the same type of referee that worked the Joshua-Parker fight last March, because that would be troublesome of Parker is prevented from fighting in close once again.

“July 28 is a huge night of boxing with a brilliant 50-50 Heavyweight match up and a stacked card beneath it,” said Hearn.

I don’t see this card as being stacked in terms of competitive match-ups. Brook, Parker, Whyte and Taylor, Benn, Buatsi and Yeleussinov are well-known fighters, but most of those fights are horrible mismatches involving the home fighters. I don’t see a card being stacked when the fights aren’t competitive ones. I see this as business as usual with a promoter matching his fighters against victims in sure thing fights.