Kell Brook still isn’t quite convinced that Amir Khan wants to fight him Saturday night in Manchester, England.
The reason, Brook believes, that Khan finally agreed to their highly anticipated domestic grudge match comes down to one thing – money. Brook suspects Khan needs an influx of cash and views their showdown as the most profitable fight left for an aging British legend no longer quite equipped to compete at the championship level.
“I think that he lives beyond his means,” Brook told BoxingScene.com. “This is the biggest money fight out there and nobody’s interested in him in America anymore. Nobody’s interested in him fighting anybody else. It’s a grudge match. It’s a fight that the fans and everybody’s excited about. And it’s the biggest money fight, so it was the only option for him, in my opinion.”
At long last, Brook, 35, and Khan, also 35, will square off in a 12-round, 149-pound bout at AO Arena, the venue once known as Manchester Arena. Despite that they’re past their primes, the card headlined by the long-discussed Brook-Khan bout sold out in approximately 10 minutes when tickets went on sale December 13.
Intense interest from British boxing fans doesn’t surprise Brook, even though the former IBF welterweight champion admits he wishes he would’ve fought Khan long ago.
“It’s been a fight I’ve wanted for a long time,” Brook said. “The fans, wherever I go in England, you know, even in America as well, they say, ‘When are you gonna fight Amir Khan?’ You know, it’s a fight I’ve wanted to give them for a long time and I’ve been frustrated that it’s never come off. You know, but I’m obviously happy now that we’re days away and we can finally settle our differences in that ring. So, you know, it is what it is. We finally got there and that’s what’s most important.”
Sheffield’s Brook (39-3, 27 KOs) will fight for the first time Saturday night since unbeaten WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford (39-0, 28 KOs) stopped him in the fourth round of their November 2020 bout at MGM Grand Conference Center in Las Vegas.
Khan (34-5, 21 KOs), a 2004 Olympic silver medalist, will end a much longer layoff than Brook. The former IBF/WBA 140-pound champion and onetime WBA welterweight champ hasn’t boxed since his fourth-round, technical-knockout victory over Australia’s Billy Dib (47-6, 27 KOs, 2 NC) in July 2019 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Sky Sports Box Office will air Khan-Brook as the main event of a pay-per-view show in the United Kingdom and Ireland (£19.95; 6 p.m. GMT). ESPN+ will stream it as a main event in the United States (1 p.m. ET; 10 a.m. PT).
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.