By Dan Ambrose: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder says IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) is a hypocrite for selecting welterweight Kell “Special K’ Brook (36-0, 25 KOs) to fight in his next title defense on September 10 rather than fighting someone from his own division at 160.
Golovkin has previously made comments about the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Amir Khan fight last May, saying it’s a “business fight’ and that it wasn’t “respect” for the sport that Canelo was fighting a guy two divisions below him. Golovkin is now doing the same thing by fighting Brook, according to Deontay Wilder.
“He’s being a hypocrite,” said Wilder about Golovkin in him choosing to fight a welterweight in Brook in a similar way that Canelo fought Khan recently. “He just said the same thing about Canelo-Khan, but you’re doing the same thing. I like Triple G as a person,” said Wilder.
In fairness to Golovkin, Brook is a large welterweight that is probably more of a junior middleweight than a true welterweight. It’s become commonplace in the sport of boxing to have fighters drain down to fight in divisions that are not meant for their body types. Brook probably wouldn’t have been fighting at welterweight all these years if the sport still had same day weigh-ins.
Golovkin isn’t fighting a true welterweight. He’s fighting a small middleweight in Brook. His own promoter Eddie Hearn has said as much. It’s not the same thing that Saul “Canelo” Alvarez did in fighting Amir Khan, because Khan started his career out as a lightweight. Khan has moved up in weight over the years, but he’s not as big as Brook and never will be. Khan is what you call a pumped up lightweight rather than a true welterweight.
“Last fight with Khan, who came from two divisions down, this is not respect,” said Golovkin previously to Power 106. “It’s a business fight. He needs, absolutely, a true middleweight fighter at 160,” said Triple G.
There are so many differences between Khan and Brook. Besides being lighter than Brook, Khan had a history of knockouts going into his contest with Canelo earlier this year. Brook has never lost a fight and has only been hurt once in his career in his first fight against Carson Jones in 2012.Brook hasn’t knocked own, and he’s looked pretty solid in his fights. Golovkin isn’t fighting a guy that is shaky in Brook. He’s fighting a good junior middleweight/middleweight.
You can ignore that Brook is classified as a welterweight, because he’s not a welterweight. Brook is just one of many fighters that choose to put his body through torture to drain down to fight in a division that he’s suited for weigh-wise. If there were same day weigh-ins like in the past, Brook couldn’t do what he does in fighting at welterweight. He would have to fight in his true weight class meant for his body size. In that case, I think we’d see Brook fighting at middleweight.
Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler didn’t approach Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn to make the fight with Brook. That was Hearn that took the initiative to make the Golovkin-Brook fight after his middleweight fighter Chris Eubank Jr. missed a deadline for the negotiations with Golovkin. That’s the fight that Golovkin was supposed to take. Hearn was scrambling to try and save the Golovkin fight for his promotional company Matchroom Sport.