Amir Khan continues to dangle a carrot in front of Sheffield world champion Kell Brook.
The Bolton welterweight told his local paper: “Kell Brook is a fight I would love to take, Virgil (Hunter, trainer) wants it and I want it. It would be a big British fight and me and Kell are of a similar age, so I think maybe it works out better to have that fight happen a bit later when he has built his reputation up more and fought bigger and better names, but there is a fight there one day.
“It might be a little bit of a grudge match it’s all about just setting out who is the number one in Britain in the division – it is about setting the record straight.”
Brook, 29, is exasperated by talk of a Khan fight - his full focus is on beating Diego Chaves at Sheffield Arena on October 24.
Meanwhile, Brook’s promoter Eddie already has on eye on his man moving up to light middleweight.
“Three or four fights from now, I would say that Kell will move up a weight division. The move is inevitable so it is a matter of when,” Hearn told Daily Mail.
“I can see him winning world titles at both light middleweight and middleweight and there are tempting fights to be made against men like Miguel Cotto and Saul Alvarez. He is good enough to be a multiweight world champion so the next couple of years should be very exciting.”
*WBA super-middleweight champion Fedor Chudinov has been sparring with Sergey Khomitsky, the Ukrainian who inflicted Frank Buglioni’s only professional defeat, in preparation for his title defence against the Briton on Saturday.
Khomitsky stopped the then-undefeated Buglioni in six rounds in April 2014 before his decision to join new trainers Steve and Paschal Collins.
He also previously defeated the highly-respected Jamie Moore in 2010 and Sheffield power-puncher, Adam Etches, earlier this year, earning a reputation as a ‘British slayer’, and the champion’s camp believe he could yet have a significant say in Saturday’s fight at Wembley Arena.
“There’s only one difference,” said the 28-year-old Chudinov’s promoter, Russian Wlad Hrunov, at a bad-tempered press conference in a central London hotel.
“His name is Sergey Khomitsky, he stayed with us in the training camp. He sparred with him.”
Buglioni, 26, swiftly responded that “he’s not the same style as me though, is he?”, before co-trainer Paschal Collins said: “If you’re going on the Sergey Khomitsky fight, if you’re looking at that fight and thinking that (the Buglioni of 2014) is going to be in front of you, throw that right hand over the top and see what happens. Your fighter gets knocked out.
“Your fighter is going to get his a*** kicked. Fact. Throw the right hand, we beg you, we will pay you to throw the right hand, and see what happens.”
Paschal’s brother Steve, a former world champion at both middleweight and super-middleweight who interestingly almost fought Chudinov’s trainer Roy Jones Jnr in the 1990s, added: “We’ve got sparring partners that can beat Chudinov, that Frank’s handling in the gym.
*Etches takes on a Japanese fighter, Yosuke Kirima in Monaco on July 11.