Former IBF welterweight world champion, Kell Brook, has admitted that despite his 2022 retirement, he would still be willing to listen to offers for return, only if the opponent excites and motivates him to return to the gym.
Brook (37), in February of last year, finally took the bragging rights in his career-long rivalry between himself and two-time world champion Amir Khan, securing a sixth-round stoppage in Manchester.
Following Kell’s retirement, concerns regarding his welfare came earlier this year regarding suspected drug use after an expose by the Sun newspaper regarding a video which showed Brook allegedly taking a quantity of cocaine. Brook has admitted that he struggles with retirement and adjusting to life away from the sport.
Brook, however, has not hidden the fact that he would be tempted to return to the ring if the right opportunity came around, with Conor Benn being linked with the former IBF champion as a possible opponent on multiple occasions.
Benn is currently subject to a British Boxing Board of Control & UKAD investigation regarding two failed drug tests for the substance clomiphene in the lead-up to his proposed encounter with Chris Eubank Jr in October 2022. The contest ultimately collapsed on fight week and saw Benn provisionally suspended.
However, despite the provisional suspension of Benn by UKAD, opportunities had been explored by Benn’s promoter Eddie Hearn in taking the fight to the Middle East.
The possibility of that happening in the short-term has been removed due to Eubank Jr agreeing and now confirmed to be facing Liam Smith on September 2nd in Manchester in a contractually obligated rematch which Eubank Jr enforced following his defeat to Smith earlier this year.
Providing that Benn can resolve his issues with the BBBofC & UKAD, Brook would be willing to face Benn in an encounter which would “get me excited for a comeback fight.”
“Even if a fighter has been retired 10, 15 years, they will feel they are still able to come back for one more. It is still fresh for me, I’m still moving away from being an active fighter, but I’m still there and ready to listen if there is a name that excites me and gets me in the gym. Time will tell whether that comes along,” Brook told Metro.co.uk.
“There is always drama in boxing, and [Benn] is a fighter I could get excited about. The attention he has had over the past year is a big fight, one that would get me to push on in the gym. That fight would get me excited for a comeback.
“But it is always complicated in boxing; There are so many things you don’t even hear about in making a fight like that happen, and to be honest, I’m tired of all that kind of thing. But those kinds of fights interest me, names like Benn, Liam Smith and Chris Eubank Jr, these names would get me fueled up again.”
