By Dan Ambrose: Floyd Mayweather Jr. says he didn’t like the way welterweight Kell Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle stepped in and threw in the towel in the 5th round in the Gennady “GGG” Golovkin fight last September. Mayweather says it looked “like a fix” the way Ingle tossed the towel in suddenly in the 5th.
Brook was still standing at the time, trying to make Golovkin miss with his power shots. Mayweather probably thought it looked weird because Brook was unhurt other than his right eye, which he dabbed at earlier in the round.
Mayeather said to Fighthype.com:
“There shouldn’t be no quit in no fighters, just like in the Kell Brook fight,” said Mayweather. “I seen the trainer jump in and throw I the towel. To me, it looked like a fix.”
The Golovkin-Brook fight didn’t look like a fix in the 5th round. It looked to me like Brook was broken mentally by Golovkin’s pressure and body shots. Brook then stopped throwing punches was in serious distress in the final sequence of the fight. Ingle totally understood that, which is why he waived the towel to the referee Marlon Wright to get his attention to have the fight stopped. When Wright failed to see him waving the towel, Ingle threw the towel into the ring. It was at this point the fight was halted. Brook staggered briefly from the last punch that Golovkin landed.
It was crystal clear that Brook only moments away from being dropped by Golovkin. There was one whole minute left in the round and Golovkin was landing vicious chopping shots to the head of Brook, one after another. Brook was trying this best to make Golovkin miss, but it was no longer capable of doing that in the final seconds before the stoppage. Brook as finished and he would have been stretched out if not for Ingle.
Only Brook knows why he stopped fighting back in the 5th round before the stoppage. But in looking at the 5th round on replay, you can see Golovkin hit Brook with a hard body shot, and immediately Brook drops his hands to cover up his body. He then lets Golovkin nail him with five straight head shots. Brook clearly didn’t want to get hit to the body again, so he kept his hands down by his sides. Brook didn’t even bother to try and throw anymore. In the last 20 seconds before the fight was halted, Golovkin was the only one landing punches. Brook tried to throw a weak right hand in the final five seconds of the fight, but it missed badly. Golovkin continued to tee off on Brook until Ingle threw in the towel. 20 seconds is a long time for one fighter to be getting worked over by another with nonstop punches. Golovkin was right on top of Brook, throwing punch after punch. Granted, many of the punches were missing, but more than enough of them landed to have Brook in serious distress. Brook looked out on his feet like a drunken fighter at the time the fight was stopped. Brook’s first steps after the fight was stopped looked like he staggering. He was clearly punch drunk from the last 20 seconds of heavy bombardment he had taken. Ingle did the right thing in stopping the contest because there was too much time to go in the round for Brook to survive. Brook had been mentally and physically broken by Golovkin, whether he wants to admit it or not.
I remember thinking at the 4th round that the fight was going to be stopped during the 5th round. What made me think the fight was going to get stopped was the way that Brook’s trainer Ingle leaned forward and appeared to whisper something to Brook in the corner before the start of the 5th round. When I saw Ingle whispering something to Brook, I felt right then the fight would be stopped in the 5th. You can’t call that a fix though. It was more of a case of Ingle realizing that Brook was injured, and that he wasn’t going to let the fight go much further. Ingle should have stopped the fit after the 4th though in my opinion. If you feel that your fighter is hurt, then should stop it before they go out for the 5th round.
Brook tried to fight in spurts in the 5th round, but he totally ineffective. Brook landed shots, but they did nothing to slow down the forward progress of Golovkin. If anything, Brook’s pesky shots seemed to motivate Golovkin, because he was nodding his head, as if to say, ‘Yes, that’s good. Keep throwing, Brook, and I’m going to hit you as hard as I can to pay you back.’ Golovkin wanted that exchange from Brook, because he needed something to motivate. The problem was, Brook couldn’t handle it, and it wasn’t just because of his injured eye.
Brook was bothered more in the 5th round by two hard body shots that Golovkin hit him with. They right hands to the body. Once Brook got hit hard to the body, he then stopped throwing punches. That wasn’t because of his eye. It was because Brook didn’t like getting hit to the body. If Golovkin had focused his attention to the body earlier in the fight, he probably could have gotten Ingle to throw in the towel sooner with Brook mentally quitting by not throwing punches.
Brook is a good fighter, but he’s just not built to handle wars. Brook is more of a guy that dishes it out, holds, and then moves around the ring. He doesn’t like to get hit, and he doesn’t stand and trade with anyone. You saw that in the Golovkin fight, as well as in Brook’s fight against Shawn Porter. Brook never stood and fought Porter. He was holding him, and moving around the ring. Porter didn’t win because he didn’t stay on top of Brook, and he didn’t do a good job of fighting through the clinches. Porter would have beaten Brook too if he’d stayed close and fought through all the holding that Brook was doing.
