Kell Brook: I’ve got the power to KO heavyweights

By Boxing News - 03/27/2016 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: IBF welterweight champion Kell “Special K” Brook (36-0, 25 KOs) was in the bragging mood last night after his wipeout 2nd round knockout of mandatory challenger Kevin Bizier (25-3, 17 KOs) at the Sheffield Arena in Sheffield, UK. Brook knocked the 31-year-old Bizier down twice in the 2nd round before referee Marcus McDonnell stopped the contest at 2:15 of the round after seeing how hurt Bizier was.

After the fight, Brook bragged about having heavyweight like power, and saying he wants to fight Danny Garcia, Tim Bradley, Keith Thurman or Shawn Porter next in the summer. I don’t know if Brook is going to get any of those names unfortunately.

“I’ve got power that can knock heavyweights out,” said Brook. “That’s what we have to do now – make a big fight. I need a bit between my teeth, a threat on my hands to really drive me. I love that green belt. Danny Garcia. I’d love [Timothy] Bradley. [Keith] Thurman. [Shawn] Porter. Any in that hat, I’ll fight. Let’s unify the division and in time, we will move up.”

Here’s the deal; the punch that hurt Bizier and knocked him down was a short right hand that caught him when he was not expecting it. The punch wasn’t a huge one. After Bizier got back up, he was too hurt to defend himself, and he went down immediately after getting nailed by a small flurry of shots. The punch that knocked Bizier down for the second knockdown wasn’t a big shot either. It was basically an arm punch because Brook was throwing shots in a hurry without setting his feet. There was no real power in any of Brook’s punches in the final sequence.

As far as Brook having heavyweight power, nah, I don’t think he’s a tremendous puncher. I rate Keith Thurman and Errol Spence as being bigger punchers than Brook. Brook is a good puncher, but he’s no Julian Jackson. What Brook does have going for him is size. He looked like a full junior middleweight last night against the welterweight-sized Bizier. That was the thing that jumped out at me. It was impossible to not notice how much bigger Brook was compared to Bizier.

The guys looked like they were from different divisions. Brook is basically little more than a boiled down junior middleweight who is able to fight in the welterweight division. I don’t think Brook has middleweight size, but I do think he’s clearly a 154lb fighter that is getting over by fighting welterweights.

If you put Brook in the junior middleweight division, my guess is he’s not going to have the same kind of success fighting the likes of the Charlo brothers, Erislandy Lara, Liam Smith, and Demetrius Andrade. Those guys all have the same size as Brook, and better power. Brook is a good junior middleweight though, but I don’t see him as a legit welterweight. It’s too bad the International Boxing Federation doesn’t have strict rehydration rules to keep their fighters from gaining back a ton of weight, because if they did, I think last night’s fight wouldn’t have happened. Brook looked like he was at least 160 in last night’s fight against Bizier, perhaps even 165. He looked huge.

WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia will probably say no to fighting Brook in the UK. I honestly don’t see Garcia even agreeing to fight Brook in the U.S. either. The reason for that is Amir Khan has already said he plans on moving back down to 147 and taking on Garcia after he faces Saul “Canelo” Alvarez on May 7. Further, Floyd Mayweather Jr. said recently that when/if he makes a comeback, he’ll only do it to fight Garcia. As such, there’s no motivation for Garcia to take a risky fight against

Brook and his promoter Eddie Hearn wants his next opponent to come to the UK to fight at Bramall Lane, which has a seating capacity of 32,000. Obviously that venue isn’t nearly as big as the 80,000 seat Wembly Stadium in London, UK, but then again, Brook would have zero chance of filling up a large venue like Wembley. He’s not a big enough name. It’s not that Brook couldn’t already be a big name. His career has been held back in a MAJOR way due to the soft match-making that’s been done for him. Now he’s forced to fight in smaller venues as he slowly builds his fan base at the age of 30 instead of in his early 20s.

Well, I guess it’s better late than never. I do think Brook’s career has been stunted due to his promoters not pushing him along in the right manner. I wouldn’t be happy if I were Brook, because the slow manner that he’s been moved in his career has probably cost him millions. Can you imagine the kind of money Brook could be making right now if he’d already most of the big names in his early 20s instead of only now looking to fight them? Like I said, I wouldn’t be happy. Brook’s promoters have brought him a long WAY too slowly.

“You’ve got Thurman-Porter. Any of them is exciting fights. Eventually [I’ll move up]. I’m world champion. Let’s unify the division. Like Eddie said, in time we’ll move up,” said Brook. “I wanted to warm into it and have an all-out war for you guys but he couldn’t stand up to him,” he told Sky Sports. I hit him with a shot and that was all she wrote. I’ve got my mandatory out of the way and we’re going to get the big fight now.”

Yeah, Brook did what he had to against a very limited fighter in the 31-year-old Bizier. However, the International Boxing Federation should have never had Bizier as the #1 guy in the first place in my view. How in the heck does the IBF reason that Bizier deserves to be #1 when he was beaten twice recently by Jo Jo Dan? That is just so weird to me.

The IBF had Bizier ranked above Errol Spence and Lamont Peterson. If you’ve seen Spence fight, you’ll know immediately that the IBF goofed up by putting a limited fighter like Bizier above Spence. The IBF basically threw Brook a bone by letting him fight another easy mandatory. Just last year, the IBF had Jo Jo Dan as Brook’s mandatory. That was an absolute joke because Dan had recently beaten twice by Selcuk Aydin.

“That’s what he does to these fighters. Kell Brook’s a beast,” said Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn. “I think he’s the best welterweight in the world, and we’ve got to prove it. You can only prove it so far against fighters like Bizier. He [Brook] needs to prove it against elite fighters in the world. We’re going to move forward. We’re going to land that big fight. We’ve got to. No one wants to fight Kell Brook. He’s that good. He has the belt. We’re going to have to put up the money, and we’re going to have to bring them to Sheffield. If we have to go to America, so be it, but I want to bring them back to Sheffield. He can go through the weights, but while he has the belt, lets unify the division; whether it’s [Jessie] Vargas, whether it’s [Danny] Garcia. I love the Timothy Bradley fight. He’s fighting Manny Pacquiao. There are so many options. Miguel Cotto came through with HBO. He’d [Brook] walk to New York for that fight. Right now, he wants to unify the division. He’s pound-for-pound the best fighter in Britain right now. He’s going to have a couple of weeks off, and then back in the gym. End of July in Bramhall Lane. Let’s do it,” said Hearn.



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