By Carlos Boogs
Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport, who promotes IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (35-0, 24KOs), has a very good feeling about the likelihood of a domestic mega-fight taking place with Amir Khan (31-3, 19KOs) on June 4th at Wembley.
The fight appeared to be dead in the water a few days ago, but now Hearn believes everything is back on track after holding several discussions with Khan's team.
"If you'd have asked me 48 hours ago, I'd have said it's a complete waste of time and it's dead, but if you ask me that now I think it's going to get made," Hearn told BoxingScene.com's Declan Taylor in a video interview.
"You have a couple of phone calls and you think it's close; we've had 24 hours with that action. All I can tell you at the moment that I'm hopeful it will get made for June 4."
Both fighters have interim obligations coming up. Brook has a mandatory defense against Kevin Bizier on March 26th in Sheffield. Khan might also return to the ring in March and the WBC recently made him the mandatory challenger to newly crowned welterweight champion Danny Garcia.
Hearn admits that it wasn't easy to get Brook to back down from his position of a 50-50 split in the fight. Some heavy convincing was required for Brook to understand that a deal was never going to happen unless Khan receives the lion's share of the money.
The only thing left is for both sides to eliminate the loose ends. The two sides have spoken several times in the past but their discussions were never as serious as the ongoing negotiations that are currently taking place. Hearn says there is still a "long way to go" before a deal gets done - but he estimates the odds as being more favorable to the fight getting done this time around.
'There seems to be a will from both sides to get the fight made now. When you have that you feel like you're in a good spot. I think when [Khan] looks at the options, there's only one fight for him. Kell didn't want to take less than 50/50. It's been me twisting his arm, saying I don't think these are the terms that are fair but the terms that could get it made," Hearn said.
"I'm hopeful but there's a long way to go. I'd say I'm somewhere between 60/40 and 70/30 [in favor of it getting made]."