How Gennady Golovkin-Kell Brook was made

ByDAN RAFAEL
September 9, 2016, 9:11 AM

— -- As July began, two major fights were well on their way to being finalized to take place this fall in England, a welterweight title unification bout between Kell Brook and Jessie Vargas and unified middleweight titlist Gennady Golovkin squaring off with contender Chris Eubank Jr.

Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, who promotes Brook and Eubank, had worked out deals with Vargas promoter Top Rank and Golovkin promoter Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions.

Both matches seemed like fan-friendly bouts that the public could get behind. But then, suddenly, neither was finalized, leading to a perfect storm that resulted in both A-sides, Golovkin and Brook, winding up paired with each other for a fight even bigger than the other two on the table.

So as Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) gets set to make his 17th title defense against Brook (36-0, 25 KOs) on Saturday (HBO, 5:30 p.m. ET/PT with a replay at 10 p.m. ET/PT) at the sold-out O2 Arena in London just how did we go from nearly seeing Golovkin-Eubank and Brook-Vargas to getting the fight ultimately signed?

\"I spoke to Kell that night and said, 'Would you be interested in Golovkin?' And he was like, 'I'll fight Golovkin!' I said, 'You serious?' Kell said, 'Yes, get me the contract.' I've promoted Kell for five years. I was happy to give him the title shot and the money and no hassle.\"

Hearn said that he feels sorry for Chris Eubank Jr., who had said on Twitter he had never seen a contract for the fight, even though Hearn said it had been with the father.

\"If I had [Chris Eubank Jr.] in a room for 15 minutes talking to him and spelling everything out, it would have gotten signed immediately, but you have a guy advising his son who was an outstanding fighter but who is not qualified from a business angle to guide his son's career,\" Hearn said. \"It was very frustrating.\"

After Brook's gleeful acceptance of the bout, Hearn called Loeffler and proposed they make the fight at a catch weight of 158 pounds given that Brook would be moving up two weight classes, although he is enormous for a welterweight.

Loeffler told him Golovkin would not fight at a catch weight. If Brook wanted to challenge for Golovkin's middleweight belts the fight would have to be contracted at the division limit of 160 pounds.

\"So I told Kell, and he accepted 160,\" Hearn said. \"How he made welterweight in the first place I will never know.\"

Said Golovkin trainer Abel Sanchez, perhaps taking a swipe at Eubank and all the others who have blatantly avoided Golovkin (Canelo Alvarez and titleholder Billy Joe Saunders among them): \"Kell Brook stepped up instead of talking about it.\"

But remember, the Brook-Vargas deal was still hanging out there. Hearn said he sent Top Rank executives an email prior to the announcement of Golovkin-Brook to inform them of the turn of events.

\"It all happened so quickly,\" Hearn said. \"I felt if this [Golovkin-Brook fight] doesn't happen, Vargas is still the fight we want,\" Hearn said. \"I emailed Bob and [Top Rank vice president] Carl Moretti and told them, 'Look, I'm sorry, I really wanted to make the fight. But this opportunity came around and it's too big to turn down.' Carl was great. He said they understand.\"

Arum, who often would hold a grudge on such an issue, has a longstanding friendship with Barry Hearn, Eddie's father, who used to run the day-to-day operations of the promotional company. Arum took it in stride and said there were no hard feelings.

\"Eddie couldn't sign Eubank to fight Golovkin so he gave the fight to Kell and offered him the same deal he was offering Eubank,\" Arum said. \"And then we got an email that morning [of the announcement] from Eddie saying he's sorry we can't make it as Brook decided to fight GGG. We didn't even know that was on the table or being considered. But we did everything we could to make Vargas-Brook.\"

Moretti said once the money was cut because of Brexit he did not think they would have been able to finalize Brook-Vargas.

\"The new offer was enough less money to not accept the deal,\" Moretti said. \"Hey, it happened. Brook was going to get beat up by Vargas and now he's really going to get beat up by Golovkin.\"

Brook, of course, does not see it that way. He is ecstatic to face Golovkin in a fight much bigger than the Vargas fight would have been.

\"I think it was written in the stars the way it happened,\" Brook said. \"With Vargas, it was back and forth and it got a bit a too messy. It would have been nice to have a unification fight in my home city of Sheffield [where it was supposed to take place], but when this fight with GGG came my way, it was serious. Instantly, I said yes to this fight because I want to be in exciting fights and this is so exciting. It's the biggest fight in world boxing and I want to give back to the fans and push myself to achieve the most that I can.\"

Golovkin was matter of fact about how the deal for his fight was made.

\"I thought we had a fight with Eubank Jr., now it's with Kell Brook, which is very good for me,\" he said. \"I promise a 'Big Drama Show' for the U.K. fight fans.\"

Hearn said he was pleased with the way things worked out.

\"I'm happy because I got the opportunity to bring, in my opinion, the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter [Golovkin] to the U.K., which is amazing for the U.K. fight fans and I got the opportunity for my fighter, Kell Brook, to be in one of the biggest fights in world boxing. We are not stupid, we know exactly what we are up against. But the interest is huge. The tickets sold out in 10 minutes. We're expecting huge pay-per-view numbers.\"

Everything seems to have worked out for the fighters as well, except for Eubank.

Brook, unable to make a fight with any of the top welterweights, got the big fight he has craved. Golovkin also got a bigger fight than had he faced Eubank.

As for Vargas, don't cry for him. He may not have gotten Brook, but he got something even bigger and more lucrative -- the opportunity to fight in a pay-per-view main event in his hometown of Las Vegas and defend his title against the legendary Manny Pacquiao on Nov. 5.

And Eubank? Well, he's another story.

Instead of a major world title fight worth millions, he will defend his British middleweight title against mandatory challenger Tommy Langford on Oct. 22 in Cardiff, Wales, for a fraction of the money, and the reason has nothing to do with Brexit.

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