Kell Brook retained his IBF welterweight title with a dominant knockout victory over Jo Jo Dan in an emotionally charged homecoming at Sheffield’s Motorpoint Arena.
Brook, who now boasts an unblemished 34-fight professional record, completed a long-anticipated ascent to world champion status with a majority decision win over the American Shawn Porter in Carson, California last August.
The warm afterglow of the 28-year-old’s most glorious triumph chillingly subsided less than three weeks later, while he was holidaying with his family in Tenerife, when a vicious machete attack left him with a gaping wound in his left thigh requiring two-hour emergency surgery and a blossoming career in the balance.
His reward for a gruelling course of rehabilitation was a game but thoroughly over-matched opponent in the form of the mandatory challenger, Dan, who was floored for the fourth and final time of a chastening outing when the bell sounded to end round four. At that stage the Toronto-based Romanian’s corner pulled their man out for a third loss in 37 bouts.
Brook’s 23rd career stoppage was his reward for a display of calculated destruction. “It was overwhelming, I had to hold myself together,” he said of a rapturous reception on entering the arena. “I showed I was world class tonight by stopping Jo Jo Dan, who has never been stopped – never been close to being stopped.”
Having called out his long-time rival Amir Khan in the ring afterwards, Brook reiterated his desire for an all-British blockbuster, but his promoter Eddie Hearn believes the Bolton man is not keen on the clash.
“To be honest, three or four weeks ago we put a line under that fight,” Hearn said. “What’s the point hanging around for the fight when he can fight [Juan Manuel] Márquez, [Brandon] Rios or [Keith] Thurman.”
The rumbling, velvet tones of the MC, Michael Buffer, welcomed the home favourite to the ring with unmistakable razzmatazz and, having taken the measure of his man with the jab in round one, Brook set about unravelling Dan’s evening in the next round. The champion opened up his opponent with a crisp right off the jab and Dan touched down when a follow-up right uppercut hit home. A dazed Dan rose too quickly and further chopping shots had him over once more.
Brook this week said that his late summer ordeal left him “at the bottom of the ocean”, but it was Dan flailing like a man overboard in the face of relentless accuracy from hooks and uppercuts. In the third round, Brook continued to follow through thudding right hands off his lead and any encouragement Dan might have been taking from a quieter fourth were clinically extinguished during the final stages of the round.
After a barrage of shots forced the challenger to the canvas for a third time, Brook closed the show by uncorking a perfectly timed left hand on to Dan’s chin. The referee, Earl Brown, allowed the beleaguered southpaw to head gingerly for his stool, where his corner men had mercifully seen enough.
Brook expects to be ringside in Las Vegas when pound-for-pound superstars Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao confront their defining hour on 2 May, before the Sheffield United fan prepares for a potential summer outing at Bramall Lane. Prospects such as these must make the champion’s life-threatening ordeal in a Tenerife apartment complex feel like a lifetime ago.
On the undercard, the Doncaster super-bantamweight Gavin McDonnell followed in the footsteps of his twin brother Jamie, who holds the WBA crown in the division below, by winning the European title with a unanimous decision over Ukraine’s Oleksandr Yegorov.
