By Keith Idec
If you would’ve told Tom Loeffler this time a week ago that he would’ve finalized a Gennady Golovkin-Kell Brook fight Friday, he would’ve been about as surprised as the rest of us were when it officially was announced.
Loeffler, managing director for the company that promotes Golovkin (K2 Promotions), told BoxingScene.com that as late as Wednesday he fully expected Kazakhstan’s Golovkin to defend his IBF, WBA and WBC middleweight titles against England’s Chris Eubank Jr. on Sept. 10 in London. It wasn’t until promoter Eddie Hearn, whose Matchroom Sport promotes Eubank and Brook, informed Loeffler on Wednesday that he couldn’t complete a deal with Eubank (23-1, 18 KOs) that Brook became an option.
It took less than 48 hours to finalize an agreement for Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) to box Brook (36-0, 25 KOs), the IBF welterweight champion, on September 10 at London’s O2 Arena. The Golovkin-Brook bout will be televised live on HBO in the United States and by Sky Sports Box Office in the United Kingdom.
“Everything started out very positive with Eubank,” Loeffler said. “Eddie said he could close the deal. Then on Wednesday he told me he ran into some major roadblocks with him and he didn’t think the fight was gonna be able to get done. So he said, ‘Let me see if Kell Brook wants to take the fight, because Brook before had said he would be interested in fighting Gennady.’ Two hours later he said Brook would take the same deal he offered Eubank. And then it took us two days to finalize the deal. It just shows that when two fighters actually wanna fight each other, it’s not too difficult to come to an agreement.”
When asked if Eubank’s hesitation strictly amounted to him wanting more money, Loeffler said he isn’t sure precisely why Eubank didn’t sign a contract to challenge Golovkin.
“Eddie didn’t go into too many details on that,” Loeffler said. “Our deal with Eddie was finalized. It’s just he had some points he needed to be agreed to on his side. And they just couldn’t get [Eubank] to agree. That’s when this all shifted in a completely different direction, as of Wednesday.”
Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.