Hunter: Golovkin can’t afford to have a close fight

By Boxing News - 07/18/2016 - Comments

Image: Hunter: Golovkin can’t afford to have a close fight

By Allan Fox: Trainer Virgil Hunter sees IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) dealing with a lot of pressure in his next fight against welterweight Kell Brook (36-0, 25 KOs). Hunter sees Golovkin as having spoiled the fight fans with him scoring so many knockouts.

It’s to the point now where if one of his fights go the distance or if he wins by a close decision, he’ll be scrutinized by the boxing fans in the same way that IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev is now being scrutinized after his tougher than expected 12 round decision win over Isaac Chilemba.

Hunter respects Brook for taking the risk of fighting Golovkin, but he doesn’t recommend him to do so. Hunter thinks that just because Brook will all of a sudden be fighting at the same weight as Golovkin, it doesn’t mean he’s going to be like a natural fighter at that weight, because he hasn’t been fighting at that weight during his career. It doesn’t matter if he bulks up to that weight, he’s not going to be a middleweight. Hunter believes that the only way Brook can win the fight is by using his boxing brain and being intelligent inside the ring against Golovkin.

“I commend Kell Brook for taking the fight,” said Hunter to Fighthub.com. “Time will tell. It’s a dangerous fight for him. He seems to believe it’s the fight for him, so we’ll wait and see what he can do. It could be quite a bit different [than the Amir Khan vs. Canelo Alvarez fight]. Amir gave up a lot of weight, so there was no room for error. It could be a little bit different with this fight with the fact that Brook is fighting at home. So he’s used to fighting at home. That could have some possible effects on him, and the fact that he believes he can win. I think if you’ve been at a weight for a while and you haven’t, even though you weight the same, the weight isn’t going to get you in the fight. Your brains are going to help you win the fight. I wasn’t for Amir Khan fighting Canelo. I personally wouldn’t recommend it unless I had a Mayweather with that IQ that knows what he’s doing in that ring and knows how to negate some of the weapons that his opponent has. It all depends on his IQ. His brain is going to have to win that fight. I think they’re comparing it [Canelo-Khan to Golovkin-Brook] because they’re a similar weight – a welterweight vs. middleweight. After that, I think the similarities should stop. The only similarities I see is the weight factor,” said Hunter.

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When asked the question of whether Brook can beat Golovkin, Hunter said, “Logic says no, he doesn’t have a chance, but boxing says yes, because it’s happened before. When we have put someone on a pedestal and then they get tilted off. He [Golovkin] can’t even have a close fight without being scrutinized. The same thing happened with [Sergey] Kovalev. He had a close fight [against Isaac Chilemba], and now all of a sudden he’s scrutinized by the same people that elevated him up here, and are now the same people that are pulling him down. It’s a good lesson for anybody in that position. When you knock them out all the time, that’s what people expect. People get spoiled. The same thing happened to Nonito Donaire. After [Fernando] Montiel, people thought that’s what he was trying to do, and I believe he hurt himself trying to do that. It’s a curse in a way because once you become that darling so to speak, that’s what they expect to see. That’s what the fans come to see. They didn’t pay to see a distance fight. So that’s the expectations, and that’s a lot of pressure,” said Hunter.

Golovkin will need to ge to Brook early in this fight in order to keep him from getting confident. The longer the fight goes, the more than Brook will believe that he can win. The crowd will give him the energy to possibly pull off an upset. Golovkin can take the crowd out of the picture immediately if he goes after Brook from the opening bell and puts a great deal of pressure on him.