By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn believes that IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter’s fighting style is absolutely perfect for his fighter #1 IBF Kell Brook (32-0, 22 KOs) to knock him out in their fight next month on August 16th at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
Hearn acknowledges that Brook is facing his best opponent of his career in 26-year-old Porter, but he believes that Brook has the gears to shift though to still beat him.
One of reasons why so few boxing fans are giving Brook a chance at beating Porter is because Brook has never fought a pressure fighter with the power and inside game that Porter has going for him. But Hearn thinks that Porter will pay a heavy price each time he tries to come inside to land his shots due to Brook nailing him with jabs and power shots on the way in.
“I don’t think this fight is going 12 rounds. Kell is knocking him out,” Hearn said to IFL TV. “For all those people tweeting me saying that Porter is going to do it, then back Porter. If you really think it’s going to be an easy fight for Shawn Porter, then this is a chance to make a few quid on the fight. If you’re that convinced that Shawn Porter’s going to beat Kell Brook then I suggest you go out and earn some money out of it. But don’t waste your money because Kell Brook is going to knock him out. I think Porter’s style is perfect for him. Porter’s going to try and rough him up on the inside, but he’s also got to find a way into Kell Brook. It’s not the easiest thing in the world. Kell’s got a great jab, and great accuracy.”
Having seen Brook’s fights against Alvaro Robles, Vyacheslav Senchenko, Carson Jones, Hector David Saldivia, Matthew Hatton, Luis Galarza, Rafal Jackiewicz and Lovemore N’dou, I don’t see how Brook is going to be able to keep Porter off of him. I just don’t see Brook being able to stop Porter from getting inside on him again and again on August 16th. And once Porter is in close, he’s going to mess Brook’s world up by smashing him with power shots like he’s never been hit before during his 10-year pro career.
Brook burned through the last three years of his career fighting the above mentioned fighters, and I can’t see how any of those fights helped him improve. It’s like the matchmakers for Brook got stuck on weak 2nd tier opposition and kept him there instead of having him progress against talented fighters. Now Brook is being put in with one of the best welterweights in the division in a fight that he’s not really prepared himself or.
The outcome is pretty much academic at this point. As the old saying goes “failure to prepare is preparation for failure,” and that’s obviously what we’ve seen with Brook in the kinds of poor opponents that he’s been put in with during his career.
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