By Ryan Maquiñana
Matchroom Sport Group Managing Director Eddie Hearn stood firm when asked about a potential fight between his fighter Kell Brook and rising WBA 140-pound champ Amir Khan when the latter makes his welterweight debut in the spring.
“I’m mad. Like I told the media back in the U.K., we’re not going to be Amir Khan’s bitch,” Hearn said at the Super Six Final press conference in Oakland. “We’d love to make the Amir Khan fight, but we’re not going to bow to his team’s demands. By the time Amir moves up to 147, if Kell has a world title by then, then that way we’ll have a 50-50 deal for negotiations.”
Brook (24-0, 16 KOs), of Sheffield, England, has a WBA 147-pound title eliminator lined up in October against Poland’s Rafal Jackiewicz. The actual belt is currently held by Vyacheslav Senchenko, who defends his belt this weekend in his Ukrainian backyard against Marco Antonio Avendano.
“If he beats Jackiewicz, we’re looking at Senchenko, and we’ve also been talking to Lou DiBella about fighting the winner of [Andre] Berto and [IBF welterweight champ Jan] Zaveck,” Hearn said.
So far, Brook’s decision to sign with Matchroom in April has yielded results.
“We’ve got a great relationship,” Hearn said. “We’ve been building Kell the right way in his hometown, and he’s been selling out shows. Kell Brook is going to be a big star, but we don’t need to rush him.”
Ryan Maquiñana is the boxing correspondent at Comcast SportsNet Bay Area. He’s a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and The Ring’s Ratings Advisory Panel. E-mail him at rmaquinana@gmail.com , check out his blog at www.maqdown.com or follow him on Twitter: @RMaq28.