For a supposedly retired boxer, Kell Brook’s name still generates more headlines and creates more debate than most active fighters.
Brook (40-3, 28 KO’s) hasn’t boxed since stopping Amir Khan in six rounds back in February 2022. Beating his long time rival in emphatic fashion seemed to provide the perfect finale to the former IBF welterweight champion’s career but he has clearly never been able to make a clean break from the sport that has dominated his life. Since supposedly hanging up the gloves, Brook has always been happy to respond to rumours linking him with a return or to insert himself into conversations regarding a comeback.
The 37 year old escaped the Sheffield winter and has been keeping himself fit at his old training retreat in Fuerteventura and told Simon Jordan that the the lure of the ring is hard to resist.
“I’m getting a bit bored. I didn’t know what it was like to retire but I look at these fighters now and think, ‘I could beat these guys’” he said.
“I love a challenge. I love competition. I love getting myself in good shape. I love the diet and I love the hard training and the hard spars. I love it when people don’t think I can win a fight.”
Time is a healer and Brook may well miss the idea of the long runs, the hard spars and making weight but it is safe to conclude that it will take a fairly big incentive for him to throw himself back into the brutal daily grind.
Terence Crawford ruthlessly ended his world title aspirations with a fourth round stoppage back in 2020 and Brook isn’t going to set out his stall for a long, difficult climb back up the rankings. No, a comeback would need to satisfy him financially as well as professionally and the list of opponents capable of providing him with the payday he would require is extremely short.
Brook could easily stroll right back into a domestic showdown with Chris Eubank Jnr or Liam Smith whilst a fight with Conor Benn would still sell in Britain once Benn’s dispute with the British Boxing Board of Control and UKAD has finally been concluded.
“Realistically I’d probably prefer to fight Chris Eubank Jnr. I just don’t like him,” Brook said. “He’s so arrogant. I’d get through a training camp a lot easier because I’d be fuelled. There’s something about him that goes through me. He just grinds at me.
“He can sell himself very good. He’s got summat but I just don’t like the kid. Honestly, I dislike him more than Amir Khan.
“I think it could be made. I’m willing to fight. Let’s just see what can come from it.”