LIKE austerity, it feels like Kell Brook has been around forever. However unlike austerity, the former welterweight world champion has succeeded in putting smiles on countless faces, such has been the excitement he’s brought to the ring throughout a 40-fight professional career stretching all the way back to 2004.

Yet even so the Ingle (Wincobank) Gym fighter still isn’t ready to hang them up — for on February 8 in front of his hometown fans in Sheffield at the FlyDSA Arena, the 33-year-old is scheduled to face United States southpaw Mark DeLuca in a non-title clash, with a view to putting himself back in the mix for another title shot down the line.

Having been out of ring since December 2018, after securing a lacklustre points victory over Michael Zerafa, Brook will be eager to impress and prove that his best days are still in front rather than behind him. In this scenario, DeLuca will not be expected to spoil the party, what with there being no stand-out names on a record of 24 victories and one defeat.

Almost from the moment he turned pro, Kell Brook has carried on his shoulders a weight of expectation born of the massive potential his seemingly unstoppable rise through the ranks in the early part of his career suggested. And though he’s enjoyed a career that could in no way be described as anything other than successful, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that he hasn’t quite hit the heights that his early potential suggested he would.

His career-best victory to date was against Shawn Porter in 2014, when over 12 epic back-and-forth rounds he clinched the IBF welterweight title. 

But if 2014 was Kell Brook’s annus mirabilis his annus horribilis came between 2016 and 2017 in the shape of two punishing losses, to Gennady Golovkin and Errol Spence respectively. 

Though these back-to-back losses constitute the only defeats on Brook’s record to date, he was stopped in both fights with serious damage to first his left then his right eye, requiring surgery in each case followed by a lengthy lay-off.

That he chose to fight on rather than retire after sustaining such serious damage is either a testament to his love of the sport and his determination to bounce back or, being less charitable, a dangerous failure to quit while ahead with his faculties, including his eyesight, intact.

Money, as everybody knows, talks and when it does its tone is seductive. But the seduction of money for a fighter with as many miles on the clock as Kell Brook must be weighed in the balance against the increasing risk with every fight of leaving the ring permanently damaged.

Brook’s near-religious obsession with getting Amir Khan to share a ring and massive pay day with him over many years has, you get the impression, not been good for him psychologically. 

The fact that the fight still hasn’t taken place is reflective of the genuine animosity they share — such that Khan would rather deny himself a bumper pay day if it means denying Brook one too.

Speaking of animosity, Brook’s long-time trainer Dominic Ingle and former cruiserweight world champion Tony Bellew recently had a back and forth on social media. It erupted after Bellew responsed to a VADA (Voluntary Anti-Doping Association) announcement of an “adverse finding” in an out-of-competition drug test of Ingle fighter Yves Ngabu. 

In a tweet drawing attention to the VADA announcement of the Ngabu test result, Bellew wrote: “How many times is this gonna happen with this coach in question??” (sic). 

Clearly in this he was referring to Dominic Ingle, who unsurprisingly took issue with the inference that he is running a gym of drug cheats and who responded to Bellew in kind.

Tony Bellew, it’s fair to say, has been one the most prominent voices when it comes to speaking out against drugs in boxing, repeatedly making the point that in this sport above any other those who take drugs are literally risking the lives of their opponents. 

Moreover there’s no denying that more than one of Dominic Ingle’s fighters have failed drugs tests over the years.

Even with that said, though, no concrete evidence implicating Ingle in any kind of organised cheating with PEDs has ever been provided, and thus it comes down to a case perception. 

Evidently, Tony Bellew has his own opinion on this, and hasn’t been shy in airing it, with Ingle not someone who’s willing to allow his reputation to be traduced without pushing back.

If nothing else it’s a spat that has succeeded in setting the various boxing forums alight. As to whether it develops beyond that, at this juncture it’s anybody’s guess.

Dereck Chisora

British heavyweight boxing’s Cinderella Man. Of all the arguments so far presented in refutation of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, none could possibly be more persuasive than Dereck Chisora. 

A record of 41 fights with nine defeats, with three of those defeats coming by way of KO, you would think would have seen his stock plummet to the point of being irrecoverable. 

Yet instead Chisora has never been more in demand, recently entering talks to fight the formidable former cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk on March 28 in what will be the Ukrainian’s second foray at heavyweight. 

What a career of ups and down Chisora has had, though. In 2012 he lost to David Haye in one of the most anticipated and bad-tempered domestic heavyweight fights on record, in the same year he that fought and lost to Vitali Klitschko. 

Also on his record is a doubleheader against Tyson Fury in 2011 and 2014, going down to defeat both times. He also fought a doubleheader against Dillian Whyte in 2016 and 2018, both of which again he lost, and on his record too are losses to Robert Helenius in 2011 and Kubrat Pulev in 2016.

It demands the question of just what is it that keeps Dereck Chisora going and has kept him a firm fan favourite? The answer to the first part of the question is simple — it’s money. 

Chisora has never made any bones about the fact that he’s in this game not for legacy or glory, or even titles, but for cash. Fair enough: it isn’t called prizefighting for nothing.

As to the second part of the question, this is bound up with the thrills and spills he brings to the ring, an all-action, come-forward style that suits a temperament that lies somewhere between Mount Vesuvius and your average artillery barrage. 

Now managed by his old nemesis, David Haye, Chisora at 36 remains a serious campaigner and on his night is a handful for any heavyweight. 

Come March 28, Oleksandr Usyk will more than likely find that out for himself.

John’s upcoming book — This Boxing Game: A Journey in Beautiful Brutality — is now available to pre-order from Pitch Publishing at https://www.pitchpublishing.co.uk/shop/boxing-game.