Chris Rock’s younger brother Kenny Rock is looking to get back at Will Smith. Kenny has officially signed on for a celebrity boxing match, and he wants Smith to be his opponent. He has thrown the gauntlet and Smith has yet to respond, according to a report by TMZ.
Obviously, chances are slim that Smith will accept Kenny’s challenge, but the question remains open at the time of this writing. Either way, Kenny will be throwing down. He reportedly signed a deal with Damon Feldman, the founder of Celebrity Boxing, and has been booked for a fight sometime this summer to be held in Florida. His opponent has not been determined yet, and Kenny is holding out hope that Smith will accept.
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The challenge comes with heightened drama since Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars 2022 ceremony late last month. He has since apologized, resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and made earnest promises to do some self-reflection. Needless to say, that won’t stop Kenny or commenters from speculating about how this fight would go.
Kenny told TMZ that he believes he could triumph over Smith in a one-on-one boxing match played by the rules. He notes that Smith has a height advantage over him, but he doesn’t think that’s enough to decide the fight. He also acknowledged that Smith has some boxing experience after playing Muhammad Ali in the 2001 drama Ali.
Kenny’s fight is scheduled for June 11 in Pembroke Pines, Florida. The venue is the Charles F. Dodge City Center. He will need to find an opponent soon in order to make the match happen. It’s not clear what happens if he can’t put something together.
Kenny has been outspoken in support of his brother since the Oscars. In an interview with The L.A. Times earlier this month, he said: “The joke was funny. It wasn’t hilarious funny, but I know that if he knew that she had alopecia… he wouldn’t make a joke about that. But he didn’t know.” He later added that he has watched the video of his brother being slapped many times, and that it makes him angry.
“It eats at me watching it over and over again because you’ve seen a loved one being attacked and there’s nothing you can do about it,” he said. “Every time I’m watching the videos, it’s like a rendition that just keeps going over and over in my head. My brother was no threat to him and you just had no respect for him at that moment. You just belittled him in front of millions of people that watch the show.”
Smith has not responded publicly to Kenny’s challenge, and Chris Rock himself has said little about the whole controversy as well. Fans expect Smith and his family to speak about it at more length when Red Table Talk returns.
