Former welterweight champion Kell Brook (37-2, 26 KOs) has pulled out of his scheduled July 28 fight against junior middleweight contender Brandon Cook (20-1, 14 KOs) on Sky Box Office PPV on the Dillian Whyte vs. Joseph Parker undercard at the O2 Arena in London, England.
Brook vs. Cook was supposed to be the chief support for the Whyte-Parker PPV card. That was a terrible fight for a co-feature bout on a pay-per-view card on Sky Box Office. Hearn says he had hoped to have super middleweight Chris Eubank Jr. fight on the card, but he turned it down.
Brook has become very injury prone in the last two years of his career, and this is just the latest froom him. Brook should think about retiring because he’s breaking down all the time nowadays. First it was eye injuries, now it’s an ankle problem. Brook is too brittle for him to stay active with his boxing career. This is bad news for Cook, because by delaying the announcement until July 16, it leaves him very little time to find a replacement for him to stay on the card. Some boxing fans believe that Brook is just staying in the sport until he gets a cash out fight against Amir Khan. They don’t believe that Brook is seriously interested in challenging any of the 154 lb. champions. I don’t know how much true interest there is from British boxing fans in watching Khan and Brook face each other in December. Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn seems to think that Khan-Brook is still a huge fight in the UK, but he could be disappointed. The Khan vs. Brook fight has passed it’s sell by date period a long time. Now it’s sad and pathetic to think of the two of them facing each. It’s forlorn.
Hearn says he’s working on putting together a heavyweight match between Commonwealth champion Joe Joyce (5-0, 5 KOs) and the 6’5” Nick Webb (12-0, 10 KOs). Hearn says the 30-year-old Webb has already signed the contract for the fight against 2016 Olympic super heavyweight Silver medalist Joyce. Hearn is just waiting for Joyce to sign the contract, and he believes that he will.
Brook suffered an ankle injury, according to his promoter Eddie Hearn and he’s unable to make the fight date against Cook. Hearn said Brook has had the injury for the last two weeks, says Hearn, but he had hoped that it would heal in time for him to take the fight. Unfortunately, the injury was too much of a problem for him to go ahead to face the 32-year-old Cook.
“Kell Brook had a foot injury, ankle injury that he picked up two weeks ago, and at the end of last week, we decided he couldn’t make the fight [against Brandon Cook],” Hearn said to IFL TV about Brook pulling out of his scheduled July 28 fight. ”So then we spoke to Chris Eubank Jr. about taking his place, but it looks like he doesn’t want to take the slot. Last week, we talked to Hayemaker about Joe Joyce fighting Nick Webb [taking Brook’s spot on the Dillian Whyte vs. Joseph Parker card]. It’s a commonwealth heavyweight title fight. We like the card. We got Whyte-Parker, you’ve got Dereck Chisora-Takam and you’ve got Joe Joyce vs. Nick Webb signed the contract for the fight, so we’re just waiting on Joe Joyce to sign for the fight, which I expect him to. He [Joyce] calls out Jarrell Miller and Bryant Jennings. This is Nick Webb. This is a very good domestic heavyweight fight. Provided Joyce signs for the fight, we’ll announce Joyce and Webb to replace Brook,” Hearn said.
Brook picked up his first win in two years last March in defeating Sergey Rabchenko by a 2nd round knockout in Sheffield, England. Before that fight, Brook had lost his last two fights in stoppage defeats against Errol Spence Jr. and Gennady Golovkin. Brook moved up to junior middleweight after losing to Spence by an 11th round knockout last Spence. Hearn thinks Brook has a chance of being a top fighter at 154, but at this point it looks like his main focus is fighting Khan. That’s a fight that Brook can probably win but it’s a different story if Brook gets inside the ring with the talented junior middleweights like Jarrett Hurd, Jaime Munguia, Erislandy Lara and Jermell Charlo.
Brook pulling out of the Cook fight isn’t a great loss to the Whyte vs. Parker card. It wasn’t a great fight to begin with. The boxing public showed no interest in Brook’s fight with Cook, as they saw it as a mismatch on paper, and barely a step up from the last fight for Kell against Sergey Rabchenko.
”Now we look at [Brandon] Cook. I’m quite confident I’ll make Sam Eggington vs. Cook on September 8th,” Hearn said. ”It’s now a case of does Kell Brook wait for December for Amir Khan or does he have a fight in September.”
I think it’s obvious that Brook is going to sit outside of the ring until his fight with Khan in December. It’s not a smart thing for Brook to stay inactive though because he still needs to rebuild his career after his back to back losses to GGG and Spence. However, given how injury prone Brook is, it’s too risky for him to fight anyone because he might get hurt and then wind up missing out on the Khan fight in December.
”Joe Joyce wants those big fights. He’s been offered a huge amount of money,” Hearn said. ”If he turns it down, which I don’t think he will, I think Joyce-Webb is going to happen. Brook-Cook wasn’t setting the world alight, but it was still Kell Brook.”
Joe Joyce vs. Nick Webb isn’t a fight that is worthy of being the co-feature on Sky Box Office PPV. The main event between Whyte and Parker isn’t a PPV worthy fight either. The card is a weak one with the following fights:
– Conor Benn vs. Cedrick Peynaud
– Katie Taylor vs. Kimberly Connor
– Joshua Buatsi vs. Ricky Summers
– Anthony Fowler vs. Craig O’Brien
– Dereck Chisora vs. Carlos Takam
It’s interesting that Hearn isn’t talking about putting the Chisora-Takam fight in the co-feature spot instead of Joyce vs. Webb. Hearn sounds like he really wants the Joyce-Webb fight for some reason. I see it as an easy victory for Joyce. It’s unclear whether Hearn believes Webb as having the talent to beat Joyce, but I think he’s going to be sadly disappointed when/if the fight takes place. Joyce, 6’6”, has too much size and punching power to get the job done.
