Kell Brook's been waiting for about two years for a world title fight. I reckon he's had six fights that were the so-called fights before a world title fight. This will be his fifth under new management, and still no world title fight. If he beats Carson Jones on July 7 and fights for a world title later this year that would mean he has been with his new management two years without a world title fight. This proves that there is nothing simple or easy about the boxing business.
Brook has been the leading welterweight contender for over two years. And, even with some of the most powerful people in British boxing pushing for him to get a title chance, he has slipped under the net again, and again and again. It's a disgrace in many ways that there are fighters that are even more neglected than Kell. He can count himself lucky that he is at least getting closer and closer to what he deserves: a world title shot.
The truth is that Jones is tough, rugged and can bang a bit. The other truth is that in 46 fights he is now a well capable, seasoned and decent fighter but he doesn't operate at the highest level. Carson Jones does not fight top 10, or even top 20, welterweights. This is just another treading water fight and it will no doubt be another box office success.
He's ranked No. 3 by the IBF and he's never in his career met anyone in the top 20. The rankings or ratings of the organisations mean absolutely nothing, and if they did Brook would have fought for the world title two years ago. Jones has a high ranking but the brutal truth is that, like hundreds of boxers, he is flattered by his low digit position. Brook is a genuine world class fighter but Jones is merely a decent operator.
The other Jones, Mike Jones, was touted as the second coming of Rocky Balboa and Muhammad Ali rolled into one. He was over protected and under matched and shamefully avoided Kell Brook, and somehow sneakily got a world title fight and was savagely exposed by 37-year-old Randall Bailey. That should have been Kell Brook in the ring that night, and if it had been Kell would now be the IBF king at welterweight and not facing Carson Jones in his home town of Sheffield for a meaningless trinket.
Kell will do a job on him, possibly stopping him late in the fight or winning clearly - most likely every single round. Carson Jones is doing his best to sell the fight and that's needed to keep the people that pay turning up and going through the turnstiles. His mouth will make it competitive but there is nothing in his record, against even half decent fighters, to suggest he can derail the Kell Brook express.
One problem for Brook is that men he was due to meet have either looked unimpressive, like Mike Jones, or shockingly bad, like young Victor Ortiz at the weekend. Kell is not running out of time just yet but he certainly no longer has time to play with. It's time to get serious. He's one of our best fighters and he'll show it once again in Sheffield.
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
Steve Bunce has been ringside in Las Vegas over 50 times, he has been at five Olympics and has been writing about boxing for over 25 years for a variety of national newspapers in Britain, including four which folded! It is possible that his face and voice have appeared on over 60 channels worldwide in a variety of languages - his first novel The Fixer was published in 2010 to no acclaim; amazingly it has been shortlisted for Sports Book of the Year.
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