NOT only was the biggest fight of Kell Brook’s life cancelled just three weeks before the opening bell, now it seems his opponent – IBF welterweight champion Devon Alexander – has been in talks to fight Floyd Mayweather Jnr (pictured) instead.
“The negotiations for my fight are almost done,” states Mayweather’s Twitter account. “The front runner is IBF Champion Devon Alexander. It’d be a unification bout at welterweight.”
Alexander claims a biceps injury was the reason for pulling out of his February 23 mandatory defence against Brook, but whatever the reason, any talk of a May 4 unification with Mayweather has not been welcomed by the Brook camp.
“Everything was in place, there should be no unification with Mayweather, Alexander should be getting stripped,” said Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle from their Fuerteventura training camp. “He should have fought Kell in a mandatory defence but the IBF are quite straight. We haven’t got a problem with him fighting Mayweather as long as Kell still gets his world title shot.”
Understandably, Brook is extremely disappointed by the whole scenario.
“He was gutted when he found out; he was just coming to his peak,” Ingle continued. “He was firing on all cylinders, he was brilliant on the pads, sparring-wise everything was coming together. It’s a massive let down for Kell.”
There was no talk of any possible showdown with Mayweather from Alexander’s team when they informed Brook of their man’s withdrawal.
“They just said he had a biceps injury and it would be six weeks to heal. But if you’ve got a biceps injury you’re not going to be recovered and ready to fight in six weeks. You need six weeks off and then start training again, and he’s running out of the time frame that this fight should be made in.
“Kell’s going to carry on training. When we get back we’ll have a meeting with Eddie Hearn and see how the land lies. The fight was supposed to be in three weeks and he’s been training for 14 weeks – we need to get something in place for this fight. We need to get something lined up and get something definite.”
Ingle insisted that Brook must fight in March and that a spot on the still-to-be-arranged undercard of the Mikkel Kessler-Carl Froch rematch on May 25 was out of the question.
“It’s going to have be in March, he can’t wait that long. He’s had too long a camp, he can’t stop and start again – it becomes very difficult to motivate yourself after all the training.
“Jan Zaveck is fighting in March, and if the title gets declared vacant you’d think he’d get the chance. After that you have go down the list and make a fight to create a new champion. You can’t hang around and wait for the likes of Devon Alexander to make their minds up. We need to get a move on. Kell has been waiting too long.”
