Ezekiel "The Special One" Brook

Where the fuck is he?

We have, as of last weekend, now passed the half-year mark since he last saw action (versus Michael Zerafa, which stands as just his third fight in as many years since the ill-advised jump to middleweight and subsequent loss to Golovkin), yet there is nothing scheduled or even rumored for the WBC's reigning light middleweight Silver champion. There are whispers of a long-awaited grudge match with Amir Khan in wintertime, provided Khan doesn't suffer a Prescott type shock next month against Neeraj Goyat of India - but nothing concrete, and that would make for a full calendar's worth of pages gone to waste. For a 33 year old with some major injuries and hard beatings in his past, he doesn't exactly have a lot of time left to burn.

I know he was entangled in some disputes with his promoter (Matchroom) but not sure how long remained on his contract, if that info was ever made public. Sitting around for twelve months to fight Khan seems like maybe not the most productive course. The public has clamored for that match, but nobody wants to see it happen with either man bringing in the ready-built excuse of being rusty. That's why Khan, assuming he's going for a big fight in the last quarter of 2019 (either Brook or someone else, like the Pacquiao vs. Thurman winner) has more or less gotten a pass for his upcoming tick-over against Goyat. He, like Brook, in an interesting parallel, has at this point also fought just thrice since his own ill-advised jump up to MW and beat-down loss (to Canelo, in his case) in mid-2016. Brook should follow suit and fight somebody, anybody - hell, rematch Zerafa.

Speaking of Zerafa, their fight was a WBA title eliminator - so if he wanted, he could press his case for a mandatory challenge of either the Super champion (J-Rock) or the regular (to be decided with Castaño vs. Soro II next month). He is still #3 in the WBA rankings, and the pair of names ahead of him are Hurd (recently dethroned by Williams) and Lara (coming off a loss to Hurd, and draw with Castaño in consecutive unsuccessful title challenges) - so he would have a strong argument to be the logical next mandatory defense - but the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and I don't hear any squeaking. Naught but radio silence.

In his pomp he was a terrific boxer-puncher, sometimes beautiful to watch, and was legitimately a h2h top 5 welterweight globally, even if his level of competition prior to his IBF title reign did plateau a bit at "just okay" (which, for as talented a boxer as he was, ended up to many feeling "not okay"). It'd be a shame to see him fritter away the last vestiges of his prime, whatever GGG & Spence have left him with.

 

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That was a month ago, with no further developments since.

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