By Scott Gilfoid: British promoter Eddie Hearn says that his fighter IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook will be the No.1 fighter in the 147lb division after he beats unbeaten American talent Errol Spence in their fight in May. The date for the fight could be on May 27. Hearn is in the process of having it changed from May 20 to the 27.
Hearn also is looking to stage the Brook-Spence fight at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England. It’s been talked about having the fight staged there, but Hearn needs to wrap things up.
Hearn’s belief that the winner of the Brook-Spence fight will be seen as the No.1 fighter in the welterweight division might be a little premature, because there are still a number of very good welterweights that the winner would need to fight to become the top guy at 147.
Here is the short list of fighters that are still in the running for the top sport at welterweight: Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia, Manny Pacquiao, Errol Spence, Amir Khan, Kell Brook, Shawn Porter and Tim Bradley.
“I believe and Kell believes that beating Spence will make him stand out as the No 1 fighter in the division,” said Hearn to skysports.com.
I don’t see Brook being viewed as the best fighter at welterweight if he beats Spence. There are a lot of things that go into being seen by the boxing world as the No.1 fighter. Brook would need to win IMPRESSIVELY over Spence to have a chance of being seen as the No.1 fighter at 147.
That means no controversy if the fight goes to a decision. That also means no ‘gaming the system’ by Brook by electing to hold Spence 10+ times per round like Kell did against Shawn Porter in their fight in 2014. It means Brook not running around the ring and landing three or four punches per round and still having the rounds given to him, which is what we saw in his fight against middleweight Gennady Golovkin.
One judge had Brook winning the fight 3 rounds to 1 after 4 rounds and the other two had it 2 rounds each. It sure would have been interesting to see how the judges scored the 5th round before the stoppage. I would have liked to have seen that round completed just to see if the judges would give that round to Brook too.
Brook needs to actually fight Spence for him to come out of the match with some boxing fans thinking he’s the top guy in the welterweight division. Brook’s spoiling in the Porter and Golovkin fight was not particularly impressive. All Brook was doing against Porter was holding. Brook mostly ran from Golovkin for five rounds. Brook would land three or four clean punches in each round, but Golovkin was hitting him with at least 25 thudding shots. It wasn’t a close fight.
Hearn is still talking about Amir Khan for Brook. Hearn doesn’t think that Khan will want a fight against Brook after he beats Spence, even though he said he would.
“I still don’t think Amir Khan will want it, because something in his head does not want to enter the ring with Kell Brook. We have to move on and we must not deal with time wasters,” said Hearn.
Hearn shouldn’t be jumping ahead of himself in talking about the Khan fight when his fighter Brook has a guy that will likely destroy him in Spence. It just shows that Hearn doesn’t quite understand what Brook is up against in facing Spence next.
This is another Golovkin like fighter that Brook will be facing in Spence, but it’s a more dangerous version in my view. Spence is more dangerous than Golovkin for Brook because he’s a body puncher. Brook appears to have to MAJOR problems taking body shots.
Golovkin didn’t realize that until the 5th round after he hit Brook with a right to the body that caused him to drop his hands and stop defending himself for the remainder of the fight. If Golovkin had focused exclusively on the body for the entire fight, he probably would have finished Brook off by round 2.
Spence is a vicious body puncher who really cranks up his shots to get the most amount of power when throwing his punches. Even when Spence is being held, he’d able to reach back and hammer his opponents in the midsection. If you look at Brook’s fights against Leonard Bundu and Chris Algieri, both fighters tried to hold him. It didn’t stop Spence from nailing them with body shots, and I’m talking HARD body shots.