KELL BROOK looks set to meet WBO world welterweight champion Jessie Vargas in a unification fight in Sheffield on August 27.
Brook, the IBF champion, has struggled to get fights with the division’s top names since taking the title from Shawn Porter in 2014.
His promoter, Eddie Hearn, has been in talks with Vargas, as well as the likes of Timothy Bradley and Danny Garcia, though the Las Vegas-based Californian now looks to be the one who will face Brook in the summer.
“We’re very close with Vargas. Vargas is sceptical of coming, Top Rank [Vargas’ promoters] know us, they brought Terence Crawford over against Ricky Burns [in 2014], they know how they’ll be treated,” Hearn told Boxing News.
“But Vargas isn’t totally comfortable travelling to someone’s backyard for a unification fight. But it is for a lot of money. I think it works well for both guys. I would say we’ll probably make a deal either this week or early next week.”
Any day now!
— Kell Brook (@SpecialKBrook) May 19, 2016
Vargas has previously expressed his concern over not getting a fair shake from the judges if he were to make the first defence of his title in Brook’s hometown.
In March, he turned in a career-best performance to stop the highly-touted Sadam Ali in nine rounds to lift the vacant strap.
It now looks as though the 27-year-old is on the verge of agreeing terms and will make his first professional outing in the UK. BN understands that the show will be Sky Sports Box Office pay-per-view and that Chris Eubank Jr will appear on the undercard.
If that is the case, it would be the second time Brook has headlined a PPV card after he topped a stacked bill at the O2 Arena last May, which featured Anthony Joshua, Lee Selby and Kevin Mitchell’s war with Jorge Linares.
