Kell Brook and Chris Eubank Publicly Dispute Fighting at 160
When welterweight fighter Kell “Special K” Brook (40-3, 28 KO’s) defeated rival Amir Khan, his next professional move was very much up in the air. Thankfully, Special K murdered the suspense by declaring his interest in pursuing big future fights. One such match would pit him versus fellow UK pugilist middleweight Chris Eubank Jr (32-2, 23 KO’s). Eubank Jr is himself coming off a hard-fought unanimous decision win over Liam Williams.
Before Brook could even free his knuckles from the hand wraps after the Khan fight, he was already mentioning Eubank’s name. For his part, Eubank Jr was doing the same thing with the same speed on his social media. Now, they’ve gone from talking about one another to woofing directly at each other. Given this pervasive back and forth persists, there is a feeling that this bout has a high likelihood of actually materializing.
GOT THE MARKET
For Junior and Brook, this bout is really not a bad proposition. They both are UK fighters so they already have that built-in market, not to mention Special K is already coming off his highly anticipated all-UK rumble. Also, if we are being honest, neither one of these guys is seriously being mentioned as serious opponents for the title holders.
Brook is desperately clutching onto his lone #13 (WBC) ranking at welterweight. Admittedly, Eubank Jr holds the much more favorable standings of #1 (WBA), #3 (WBO) and #3 (WBC) at middleweight. Even still, Eubank’s name is not carrying that much functional weight in the division. So by linking their names together, they could be very mutually beneficial to the other.
WORTH THE RISK?
There is the issue of weight and at what limit the prizefight would be contested. Some will say that Eubank is targeting a smaller man. Meanwhile others will say Special K is a huge 147-pounder who could have moved up long ago. There is ample ammunition for both arguments. At the same time, there is potential sufficient gain to make this bout worthwhile for all parties.
For Eubank, he potentially will be labeled a weight-bully but has the opportunity to beat a UK darling coming off the most emotionally thrilling victory of his career. Conversely, Brook has the chance to follow-up the biggest win of his professional life by going up in weight and taking out a young lion. Provided that he won, and didn’t look half dead in doing so, Special K would certainly have secured himself another meaningful payday.
Yet, there is a ton of time to go before either Brook or Eubank officially announces their next outings. So let’s just keep an eye on where this social media tough talk gets us.
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By: Bakari Simpson
