By Damien Dennis: It has been almost a month now since Shawn Porter (24-0-1) with only 15 knockouts defeated the light fisted journeyman Paulie Malignaggi (33-6) in a one sided optional first defense of his IBF welterweight title. Even though the talented Kell Brook (32-0) with a massive 22 knockouts, has been in a mandatory position for that title for a very long time now, Porter’s anxious team decided to take an easy first defense against a boxer with little or no punching power but who also happened to be from the U.S.A.
In the aftermath of the lop-sided mismatched Malignaggi brawl I expected terms between the accomplished Brook and Porter to be worked out smoothly and quickly. However, nearly a month later and there has been little or no news from either camp. This has led to a lot of speculation as to why the fight hasn’t been penciled into the calendar seeing as the IBF had originally stated that the skilled Brook would get his shot by the end of July. I mean it is not like the primitive Porter even had to break a sweat in disposing of the outsized and aging Malinaggi. So you would not think this is a case of Porter, needing a lot of time to rest and recuperate.
It is clear however that the Brook fight is an extremely intimidating fight for simple Shawn Porter to have to take at such an early stage in his championship career. I am not saying that Porter will not be involved in title fights for a long time, especially considering his size in the welterweight division. I mean this is a guy who naturally should be fighting at middleweight but has drained down a couple of divisions to give himself a chance with his non-technical brawling style that predominantly relies on strength and power.
The problem for Porter though is that Brook who is a naturally strong welterweight can match up to porter in terms of strength and power but at the same time he has far superior speed, footwork, defense, technique and timing. If Brook fights like he did in his IBF title eliminator fight against the outstandingly sublime Vyacheslav Senchenko then this fight could be over in a matter of seconds. The limited Porter is going to be in a whole heep of bother when he realizes within the first couple of rounds that he only has a punchers chance. If he fights like he did when drawing against the aging journeyman Julio Diaz in December 2012 then it could be a case that even the American influenced judges at ringside wont be able to manufacture their scorecards even if the pathetic Porter manages to survive a twelve round battering, that’s how dominant the talented Kell Brook could be.
It is clear to me that if Porter wants to hold on to his IBF belt for the near future then he is going to have to do one of two things. Either (plan A) he can get his management to work out a deal with Brook and the IBF so that Porter can continue to defend his belt against other weak and inferior opponents who are U.S based such as Zab Judah, Adrien Broner or Keith Thurman. If plan A fails then Porter is going to have to get down to the gym and learn some skills like head movement, balance and all round defense. If Porter continues to jump in completely off balance with his chin up whilst throwing his trademark rabbit punches to the back of the head then he is definitely going to get nailed by wonderful Brook’s clean and crisp straight shots. Brook’s fantastic footwork, magnificent movement and rapid reflexes will mean he is going to see those leaping wide rabbit punch hooks coming from a mile off and he will be able to time the on rushing chaotic Porter as he jumps in.
So to conclude we don’t actually know what is happening in terms of the details of whether or not this match up will go ahead and if/when it might happen. What we do know though is that this is a difficult task for Shawn Porter, he doesn’t bring a lot to the table in terms of skills, other than the fact that he has a belt if you can call that a skill. He also has little or no fan-base to headline a U.S card, certainly not a pay-per-view card anyway. Brook nonetheless could easily sell out a stadium in the U.K where this title fight would also be shown on pay-per-view.
The exceptional and knowledgeable English fans would definitely get behind their man in a big way and buy tickets and pay-per-views in their thousands. This puts Brook in a great position to get the fight staged in the U.K which would add again to his long list of advantages going in to the fight. If Porter’s management really rate their guy then they are going to have to invest a significant amount of money in the purse bid for this bout which might not be so profitable if he were to lose. For Brook, however, this could be a small stepping stone to some really massive fights with huge stars such as Amir Khan or Lee Purdy.
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