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Eddie Hearn, promoter for rising welterweight Conor Benn, has revealed that former world champion Kell Brook is requesting at least £10 million for a fight with the unbeaten contender.
The 25-year-old Benn will return to the ring on April 16, when he faces veteran Chris Van Heerden.
Last month, Brook returned to the ring to secure a one-sided stoppage win over longtime career rival Amir Khan.
Off the back of that win, Hearn approached Brook with a big offer to face Benn – but the Sheffield boxer countered back with an even larger sum.
So, Hearn would then speak to Khan’s handlers – who wanted just as much money as Brook was demanding.
“I made an offer to Kell Brook, which was more money than he made to fight Amir Khan. He asked for £10 million, which was quite a way off what I offered, to be fair. I was like, ‘f—— hell!’. Then Khan’s guys came on and said, ‘How much would you pay to fight Amir?,'” Hearn said to The Sun.
“I gave them the same offer I gave Kell and they said, ‘Surely Amir should get more?’ I said, ‘But he’s just lost to Kell’, so everyone has gone mad. I would make either one of those fights, if Amir is going to fight again. That’s a really interesting set-up, because [Khan has] activated the rematch clause [for Brook].
“But Sky only have to do the rematch if it is commercially viable. They don’t want it to go elsewhere — but they don’t really want to do it. Then Amir and his lawyers are saying to me, ‘Do you want to do it if Sky don’t?’ And I’m like, ‘Not really’, and he’s like, ‘Oh sh!t!’. But we might do it if the deal is right. Amir in my opinion doesn’t want it anyway. He’s pretending he wants it. I’d do Amir against Conor Benn. I said to Conor, ‘You’re 25, in such a good position’. We’ll see what happens after April 16.”