Golovkin’s trainer concerned with Brook’s clinching

By Boxing News - 07/18/2016 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez says he’s very concerned about a number of things going into GGG’s fight against welterweight Kell Brook (36-0, 25 KOs) on September 10 at the O2 Arena in London, England.

While there are things like the judges being influenced by the pro-Brook crowd that has Sanchez’s attention, what he appears to be more concerned with is Brook’s habit of clinching his opponents and moving around the ring.

Sanchez saw Brook’s fight against Shawn Porter in 2014, and he noticed that Brook frequently tied Porter up to keep him from being able to work. Sanchez says he believes that Brook might try to clinch Golovkin all night too, and run around the ring to avoid getting hit after his clinching. We saw that from Brook in his fight against Porter.

Brook would land one or two shots, and then fall in and hold Porter in the ‘punch and grab technique.’ When Porter would come forward and try and throw punches, Brook would quickly move forward and grab him in a clinch. It wouldn’t have been an issue if the referee working the fight had warned Brook about the clinching, and taken points and/or disqualified him if he failed to respond to his warnings. In this case, the referee failed to act and this crippled Porter’s game.

When you have a fighter that is holding you over and over again like Brook was doing against Porter, it turns the fight into a non-boxing match. It turns it into an MMA hybrid type of fight. If you haven’t trained to fight an MMA guy, then you’re going to lose if the referee isn’t going to do his job, which is unfortunately what happened in the Porter vs. Brook fight.

“Historically I think the difference has been the sped of the welterweights and smaller middleweights; in this particular case, you’re talking about a guy that is undefeated at his weight [welterweight] and he’s bringing that up or not,” said Sanchez to esnewsreporting.com. “We have two good coaches on each side that understand that he [Brook] can’t stand in front of Golovkin. He’s going to have to box him. He’s going to have to move, but he has that ability, as Sugar Ray Leonard showed against [Marvin] Hagler. If you can stay on your toes and move around for 12 rounds, you can win a fight. So we anticipate that. We anticipate the fact that it was proven in the Leonard-Hagler fight, it’s very possible to win. Remember, we’re going to England; we’re going to his house. There will be 20,000 people screaming his name, every time he misses a punch. The judges are going to be influenced. We’re going to make sure that we don’t let it get to that point, that we don’t allow it to be close. It’s a tough task, because you have a guy that doesn’t know how to lose in Brook. At you look at them when they were facing each other, I bet he weighed more than Golovkin. By the time fight time comes, he’ll [Brook] be weighing 172, 173. Golovkin will be around 169, 170. The weight advantage, I don’t think it’s relevant in this case, because he is a big, big guys, and about the same height. My concern is if he can get off those flurries and score points, and run away and get close to tie up, and move around; which he’s capable of because he did it against Shawn Porter. With the additional 13 pounds, that will give him strength to tie Golovkin up and not let Golovkin work. That’ll be an issue we’ll have to address when we get to the gym and make sure by fight time that can happen,” said Sanchez.

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Yeah, it’s smart for Sanchez to have Golovkin training in how to deal with Brook’s clinching and running, because he’s clearly going to be using both of those tactics against Golovkin on September 10. Brook will look to throw quick combinations at times, and either run immediately or grab Golovkin in a bear hug to keep him from punching him. My guess is that Brook is going to practice at hugging in a very tight manner to make it impossible for Golovkin to fight his way out of the clinch to throw punches.

If the referee isn’t going to do his job by taking points away from Brook or disqualifying him, then I suspect we’re going to see him holding Golovkin all night long. Brook wants to win by means necessary, and I think he won’t lose any sleep if he wins by holding like he did in the Porter fight. When you hear Brook and his promoter Eddie Hearn talk about that fight, they speak about it in a proud manner, as if they did a great job of beating Porter in a regular boxing match. That’s not what fight was. It was a nonstop MMA type of grab fest with Brook tying Porter up over and over again in each round.