Rios: Brook is never going to win against Golovkin

By Boxing News - 07/11/2016 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios is giving welterweight Kell Brook (36-0, 25 KOs) no chance at all in beating IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in their fight on September 10.

Rios thinks that Golovkin is too much of a beast for Brook to have a chance at beating him. Rios sees the fight being won on size along due to Brook moving up from the welterweight division to take on Golovkin. Rios thinks the size and power difference between the two of them will be too much for Brook to overcome.

When asked by esnewsreporting what will he say about Brook if he beats Golovkin, Rios said, “He’s a legitimate beast, but it’s not going to happen. If he wins, I’m going to say, ‘look, you’re the man.’ He’s [Brook] never going to win. It goes back to what I said about him [Brook]; he just fights guys that don’t have power. Kell Brook is going from 147 to middleweight, that’s the difference. 147 to 160, he’s going to get knocked out. Triple G is a monster.”

It does seem like Brook is going to have some problems in this fight with the size difference. Brook was getting hit in his last fight against Kevin Bizier, and in his fight against Shawn Porter in 2014. The shots that Bizier and Porter were landing against Brook would be knockout blows if Golovkin was supplying the power. It would be a different story. Brook was able to KO both guys, but he didn’t have to worry about getting his head taken off when he was coming in to land his power shots, because those guys didn’t have the kind of monstrous punching power that GGG has going for him.

As for Brook never facing guys with power, he did fight one guy with punching power in Shawn Porter in 2014, and he beat him. However, Brook didn’t get hit that much by Porter because he used his height and reach to control the fight from the outside. When Porter came close to throw shots, Brook would tie him up in a clinch to keep him from being able to throw punches. Porter didn’t have the knowledge back then in how to avoid a clinch or fight through it.

“Triple G is going to take his time because it’s a young guy, a smaller guy. [He’s going to] feel him out, hit him here and there,” said Rios. “Maybe by the third or fourth round, he’s going to say, ‘F— it, and say, ‘I’m bored. Let’s fight.’ What [Amir] Khan did with Canelo is different. Khan had speed. Khan had the flexibility. Kell Brook doesn’t have that. He’s fighting Triple G, a middleweight. I think he’s going to be a nice guy. He’s going to give him [Brook] two or three rounds to give fans hype, and then in the fourth or fifth round, he’s going to knock him out. Maybe in the sixth, he’s going to say, ‘F— it, I’m tired of this guy.’’

Golovkin probably will let Brook hang around for a while before he gets serious and tries to KO him. It depends through. If Brook is hitting Golovkin with some serious shots, then he’ll want to get him out of there as fast as possible so that he doesn’t get hurt.

Golovkin will use his jab at first to get control of the fight, and then start opening up with some of his power shots by the third or fourth round. It’ll be up to Brook to show that he can deal with what Golovkin is hitting him with so that he can make a fight of it. This could turn out to be a real mismatch if Golovkin goes after Brook early on and doesn’t let the fight to play out too long.

What hurts Brook’s chances of winning the fight against Golovkin is his lack of experience at middleweight. Brook is going into the fight against Golovkin off the back of a win over welterweight Kevin Bizier. That’s not the right kind of opponent to get you ready for a puncher like Golovkin.

Bizier is someone that would get you ready for an Amir Khan type of fighter, but not a Golovkin type. Brook is probably going to get a lot of good sparring during his current training camp, but I don’t think that’s going to matter. Golovkin isn’t someone that is easy to prepare for, especially if you’re a welterweight that has never had any experience against middleweight before.

Brook is either going to come out of the Golovkin looking great or looking terrible after having been embarrassed by him.

Rios (33-3-1, 24 KOs) lost his last fight to Tim Bradley last November by a 9th round knockout. Rios retired briefly, but now he’s getting in shape to resume his career. His promoters don’t have a fight scheduled for him yet, but they’ll likely have something soon.