Former welterweight world titleholder Kell Brook, steaming toward an inevitable showdown with Amir Khan, will face Brandon Cook on July 28 at the O2 Arena in London, Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn announced on Wednesday.
The fight will take place on the card headlined by the recently announced heavyweight fight between Dillian Whyte (23-1, 17 KOs) and former world titleholder Joseph Parker (24-1, 18 KOs).
In May 2017, Brook lost his welterweight crown by 11th-round knockout to Errol Spence Jr. The loss was his second in a row after having also been stopped in the fifth round challenging middleweight world champion Gennady Golovkin. In each fight, Brook suffered a broken orbital bone — on opposite sides of his face — but in March he returned as a junior middleweight and impressively halted Sergey Rabchenko in the second round on March 3.
Now Brook (37-2, 26 KOs), 32, of England, is ready for his second fight at 154 pounds and will take on Cook (20-1, 13 KOs), 32, of Ontario, Canada.
“July 28 is a huge night of boxing with a brilliant 50-50 heavyweight matchup and a stacked card beneath it,” Hearn said. “Kell returns to the scene of his epic shootout with GGG to face highly ranked Canadian Brandon Cook in a world title eliminator that will put him in pole position for a shot at all the world champions.”
Hearn also announced that unified women’s lightweight world titleholder Katie Taylor (9-0, 4 KOs), 31, of Ireland, will defend her two belts against mandatory challenger Kimberly Connor (13-3-2, 5 KOs), 37, of Little Rock, Arkansas, on the card.
Taylor, a two-time Olympian and 2012 gold medalist, unified two 135-pound belts in April with a lopsided decision win against Victoria Bustos in New York.
The card will also include a welterweight rematch between Conor Benn (12-0, 9 KOs), 21, of England, and Cedric Peynaud (6-5-3, 4 KOs), 32, of France, and light heavyweight Joshua Buatsi (6-0, 4 KOs), 25, of England, competing in his first scheduled 10-round fight when he takes on countryman Ricky Summers (15-1, 5 KOs), 30.
Benn, the son of British legend and former two-division world titleholder Nigel Benn, won a six-round decision against Peynaud in their first meeting in December.
It was an action-packed fight in which Benn got knocked down twice in the first round and then knocked down Peynaud in the fifth and sixth rounds before taking home a six-round decision win.
Buatsi, a 2016 Olympian for Great Britain, is taking a step up in competition against Summers, whose only loss was by 12-round decision for the British light heavyweight title to Frank Buglioni last July.