Kell Brook wants big fight next, targeting other titleholders

Kell Brook appears to be as tired as everyone else is of seeing Kell Brook fight substandard opposition as a "world champion," and says that he wants a unification fight next, and that any of the titleholders are fair game.

"I want to train for a fight when I have a threat on my hands. I'd love the Danny Garcia fight, the Jessie Vargas fight, I'd take the Keith Thurman versus Shawn Porter winner, the Timothy Bradley versus Manny Pacquiao winner. I want them all."

Brook (36-0, 25 KO) waxed IBF mandatory challenger Kevin Bizier in two rounds on Saturday, a predictable outcome where the only good things that can be said are that (1) he did what he should have done, and (2) he got his mandatory out of the way and left himself open for any big fight that might come along in the summer.

If it's a summer date that Brook wants to do one of these fights, that does count out the Thurman-Porter winner, as those two will fight on June 25. The Pacquiao-Bradley winner -- well, if it's Bradley -- could be doable, since they fight on April 9. Vargas is currently slated to return on the July 23 Top Rank card, featuring Terence Crawford in the main event on HBO pay-per-view. If the money were there to make Vargas-Brook as a co-feature on that show, it would be fantastic, but that seems a big ask.

That leaves Garcia, who is seemingly the freest of the lot. Garcia won the vacant WBC title in January, beating Robert Guerrero, and when Amir Khan chose to fight Canelo Alvarez on May 7, Garcia's mandatory rematch with Khan was cast aside, at least for the time being.

Garcia-Brook is a fantastic fight on paper, about as good as you can do at 147 pounds right now, two unbeaten titleholders in their primes, who present stylistic challenges for one another. The fight would almost certainly have to be in the U.S., and that's what Brook and promoter Eddie Hearn are going to have to accept. Brook has said he's willing to return to the States -- where he won the IBF belt from Shawn Porter in 2014 -- so at least there's that. To get the big fight Brook wants, a return to U.S. soil is probably necessary. It's just hard to see any of these guys going to the United Kingdom to give Brook home field advantage. U.S. fighters and promoters generally don't see the trip as worth the risk.

Here's hoping Brook does get the sort of fight he wants, and frankly the sort of fight he deserves. Whomever you want to blame for it, Brook's first three title defenses have been substandard to be kind, and trash to be blunt, and it feels like the career of a very good fighter is stalling in the process.