Lennox Lewis doubts Brook can beat Golovkin

By Boxing News - 07/18/2016 - Comments

Image: Lennox Lewis doubts Brook can beat Golovkin

By Dan Ambrose: Former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis doubts that welterweight Kell Brook can make the jump to middleweight to beat Gennady GGG Golovkin on September 10. Lewis believes that the weight classes were designed for a reason, and he thinks there’s not too many fighters that can move up two divisions at a time and find success.

Lewis says he think Chris Eubank Jr. would have beaten Triple G if he’d fought him. The problem is, Eubank Jr. and/or his father Chris Eubank Sr. failed to agree to a fight against Golovkin when it was offered to them. They didn’t meet the deadline that was set by them from Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn. He offered the same deal to Brook, and he agreed to it.

“What I’m saying is that the weight classes are for a reason,” said Lewis to the mirror. “When you try to jump two weight classes, very few people can do that and I don’t think Kell Brook is one of them.”

Perhaps it wouldn’t be nearly such a big deal for Brook to move up in weight to 160 if he had some time to slowly get acclimated to the division before facing Golovkin. If Brook could get some fights under his belt against other top middleweights to get used to the division and then take on GGG, he would at least have a fighting chance of winning. But with the way that Brook is doing it, he’s only going to get sparring in training camp with middleweights, and you can’t imagine that any of them will be anything close to the kind of talent that Golovkin will have on September 10.

It’s likely that Brook will be sparring with domestic level middleweights and not top caliber fighters in the division. It would cost Hearn a lot of money for him to bring in some good middleweight contenders to get Brook ready for Golovkin, and he likely won’t make that move to get someone that can give him adequate preparation that he’ll need.

“With Brook, it’s two divisions and I don’t agree with that. I look at the Amir Khan situation with Saul Alvarez and I’m like, ‘Nobody, does that, that’s why we have different weight classes,” said Lewis. “If you’d asked me about Golovkin-Eubank, I would have probably gone for Eubank,” said Lewis.

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Brook is taking a big risk in challenging Golovkin, but he and his promoter Eddie Hearn are good with it. What can you do when you have someone that is willing to put their neck on the line for a dangerous fight? From Brook and Hearn’s perspective, it’s a game that will pay off with the fight generating a lot of money. If Brook is able to make it competitive or if he beats Golovkin, then he can count on making big money in future fights. Brook doesn’t have to win the fight because he can make a lot of money by being competitive.

Even Eubank Jr. would be over his head against Golovkin. The best guy that Eubank Jr. has faced during his career is Billy Joe Saunders, and he lost to him. Saunders would be little more than a speed bump for Golovkin. The Kazakhstan fighter would walk Saunders down and take him out with big power shots. Eubank Jr’s other toughest opponents have been Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan and Dmitry Chudinov. Those weren’t each fights for Eubank Jr., and neither of them are anywhere close to being as good as Golovkin. If Eubank Jr. is better than Golovkin, then he’s going to need to prove it if he ever gets another chance to fight him. If he lets his father take over the negotiations and kill the deal, then a fight between him and Golovkin will probably never take place.

“I like his intensity in the sense that I know he wants it, and the way he works in the gym is good, I like what he’s doing right now. I’m pretty hung up on him,” said Lewis about Eubank Jr.

If Eubank Jr. won’t fight Golovkin, then he needs to fight the likes of Daniel Jacobs or Saunders at the very least. The fight fans can find out whether Eubank Jr. has real talent of if he’s just someone that name drops but then fails to take the fights when they’re offered to him.