Kell Brook Places a Target on a Manny Pacquiao Unification

By Edward Chaykovsky

IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (36-1, 25KOs) is eager to face Manny Pacquiao (59-6-2, 38 KOs) in a high stakes unification in the near future.

Last night, Pacquiao captured the WBO welterweight championship with a lopsided twelve round unanimous decision win over Jessie Vargas (27-2, 10 KOs) at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. Immediately after Pacquiao win, Brook took to social media to call for a showdown.

Brook was actually in serious talks to face Vargas in a September unification and the deal was close to done, but then Brook unexpectedly went in another direction by finalizing a fight with middleweight king Gennady Golovkin.

Brook is still recovering from a fractured orbital bone, which he suffered in the fifth round of his TKO defeat to Golovkin.

There is a mandatory defense owed to unbeaten Errol Spence Jr. and the IBF has given him until February 24th to make a decision on whether he intends to remain at 147-pounds and go through with his obligation.

Prior to Saturday's fight, Brook gave Vargas little to no shot to win the fight.

"All the fans were saying I didn't fancy fighting the best fighters, but I have gone in there with the best in the world in Golovkin, and I'm ready to do it again," Brook told Nick Parkinson.

"I'm after the biggest and best fights out there, those are the ones that are going to get me up for it. Once you have become world champion, you need special fights to really keep you motivated in training. A world title unification fight would do that."

"Vargas is a good fighter -- he's a world champion -- but he's not the best out there. There's not massive margins at this level, but I don't think he's in the super league with the likes of Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia and myself."

Brook is still not 100% on coming back to 147, but he believes that he can still make the weight in a safe manner. For Golovkin he moved up by thirteen pounds and two weight divisions to take the fight.

"My weight has settled down so I could still make welterweight. I've got Spence on the horizon and there's the likes of [WBC champion] Garcia and Amir Khan as well, but I don't know yet," Brook said. "The eye socket is healing well, but I still have some stitches in my mouth where they went into my cheek during the operation.

"I'm looking forward to getting back in the gym and seeing what direction I'm heading in next. I need to make sure my eye is 100 percent before I start doing that. I'm looking at getting back in spring next year."