During a video interview with iFL TV, Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn talks about his ongoing negotiations to stage a fight between Conor Benn and Kell Brook, with Amir Khan throwing a wrench into things by threatening to invoke a rematch clause against Brook in order to secure some step-aside money.
Hearn makes it clear he has no intention of paying Khan off, and that if the Brook fight can’t be made they’ll just go another route.
“Yeah, I don’t wanna tell you what (Brook) asked for but it was slightly OTT,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve heard actually Amir Khan is gonna invoke the rematch clause bizarrely, and we’ve already had people contact us saying, ‘Would you like to pay us step-aside to not invoke the rematch clause?’ So, no, you’re alright, thanks. You go and do Khan-Brook 2 and we’ll crack on.
“I’ve said to Conor Benn the other day, ‘You, my friend, are a young superstar. Don’t worry about basing your career around someone else, don’t worry about waiting, trying to land this payday. Everything’s gonna come for you.’ So we crack on with our career, his next fight will be announced for April 16 and we’ll be ready for a huge show for Conor Benn.
“We’ll carry on talking to Kell Brook, I’m, like, ‘Oh, you’re ridiculous, we’re moving on.’ We’d love to make the fight. But what we said to Kell Brook and his training team was, ‘If you want to fight in June or July, we won’t fight in April,’ because I think if Kell Brook stays out of the ring for a long time he won’t fight again. So that’s what we were trying to do but it’s no big deal, we’ll carry on talking and hopefully we can get it made, but for Conor Benn his next fight will be announced next week.
“I basically offered (Brook) more than they got to fight Amir Khan, and that’s the bigger fight — well maybe — to fight Conor Benn. So, look, they asked for over three times what I offered them. So for me it said, ‘We don’t really want to fight again but if someone pays us mad money we’ll consider it.’ But we can’t wait around for Kell Brook, we’re just gonna get on and like I said, we’ll carry on talking. Hopefully we can get that fight made but right now just focus on the career of Conor Benn and keep him moving the right direction.”
Funny enough, this news sparked more than a few laughs on social media from those who believe Khan doesn’t really have intentions to fight again and is merely playing his hand to try to squeeze some easy money out of Hearn. Clearly Hearn isn’t taking the bait.