By Scott Gilfoid: Kell Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn has his sights set on staging his title defense against Errol Spence in his hometown in Sheffield in the UK. Hearn is open to the idea of staging the Brook-Spence fight in the States if the money is there for the other. If not, then he wants to have it take place in Sheffield. Hearn is talking about pushing the Brook vs. Spence fight all the way to June 4. I guess the idea is to give Brook as much time as possible for his surgically repaired right eye to recover. I don’t think it will make much of a difference. It’s not Brook’s eye that will give him problems against the talented Spence, it’s the body punching that he’ll be doing. Spence is arguably the best body puncher in the 147lb division right now, and Brook doesn’t seem to take it too well when getting hit to the body. Hearn can put the Brook-Spence fight off for as long as he wants, but I don’t see it changing the outcome.
If the fight takes place in Sheffield, it might help the 30-year-old Brook gain a small advantage over Spence (21-0, 18 KOs) in terms of the support from the boxing fans. The IBF has given Brook and Spence’s management one week to put the fight together before a purse bid on February 14.
It might be better for Spence if the fight does go to a purse bid, because the last thing he needs is to be fighting in Brook’s hometown of Sheffield. That would not be a good deal. We saw the arguably oddball scoring of Brook’ last fight against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin for their fight on September 10 in London, England.
Brook was ahead on one scorecard by 3 rounds to 1 and even at 2-2 on the other two judges’ scorecards. I saw the same fight and I had Golovkin ahead 3 rounds to 1 after 4 rounds. The only round I could give Brook was the 2nd round, and that was only because Golovkin appeared to take it easy on him in that round. Brook landed one big uppercut in the 2nd to take the round. The majority of the 2nd round was dominated by Golovkin.
After the 2nd, it was all Golovkin with him battering Brook. The 1st round went to Golovkin as well, as he staggered Brook. But for the judges to have the fight scored the way they did, it showed what Golovkin was up against. Spence will need to do his level best to take the crowd out of the fight by knocking Brook out, because I think it might be very, very hard for him to get a decision victory if he’s fighting in Kell’s hometown.
Judges are obviously human and the crowd noise might prove to be difficult for them to tune-out to score the fight correctly. I don’t see how Brook was up 3 rounds to 1 against Golovkin, and the other two scores were almost as bad at 2 rounds a piece. I don’t know how you can see the Golovkin-Brook fight and score it the way it was scored. Brook was doing his best in that fight, but it was clear that Golovkin was winning. Brook had an injured right eye and he was mostly just running around the ring and throwing an odd shot here and there.
“Both countries are still in play,” Hearn said to skysports.com. “We like the idea of staging it in the UK, but also Kell quite likes the idea of fighting in America as well. He beat Shawn Porter there, so if the money is right, he doesn’t have an issue with going to the States, but most likely [it will be fought in] Sheffield. We’re talking to Bramall Lane [in Sheffield] about it as well, end of May, 20th or 27th. If we went to America, it would only be New York, or Vegas. Purse bids are next Tuesday, so really we have to get a deal done by then.”
It might be better for Spence’s management to let the fight go to a purse bid and then take their chances of winning the bid. It wouldn’t be a good idea for Spence to agree to fight Brook in the UK, because the crowd would be in his favor. If you saw Brook’s last fight against Gennady Golovkin, you’ll have noticed that the scoring by the judges had it basically an even fight at the time that the match was halted in round 5. The fight wasn’t even though in the minds of many boxing fans. They had Golovkin clearly winning going into the 5th.
You can argue that Spence would be putting himself at a disadvantage if he agrees to fight in Brook’s home country rather than insisting that the fight take place in a neutral venue. From Hearn’s standpoint, I can perfectly understand why he would want the fight to take place in Sheffield in the UK. That would give Brook a tremendous advantage with the boxing fans firmly backing him.
I don’t know that it will change the outcome of the fight though, because Spence tends to score a lot of knockouts. He’s likely going to be shooting for a knockout over Brook anyway. Spence isn’t going to want the fight to go to the scorecards. I don’t think Brook can stand his ground against Spence. We saw how Gennady Golovkin had Brook on the run for five rounds in their fight on September 10.
It was game over for Brook in round 5 after Golovkin changed tactics and started throwing body shots. Golovkin went to the body of Brook and clearly hurt him with a right hand. This caused Brook to drop his gloves to his body to cover up so he wouldn’t get hit with another body shot. Golovkin then teed off on Brook’s unprotected head for the next 10 punches.
What was interesting was the fact that Brook didn’t even attempt to protect his head during that sequence. Brook was so concerned with protecting his body from additional shots from Golovkin that he never even attempted to bring his gloves up to protect his head. At that point, it was the beginning of the end for Brook. He then used the ropes as a walking cane and moved from one side of the ring to the other before being trapped in a last stand against the ropes.
With Brook trapped and near helpless against the ropes, Golovkin unloaded a storm of shots to the head and body. In the meantime, Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle, seeing the plight he was in, he threw in the towel. Ingle had no choice but to toss in the white towel of surrender because Brook had made the conscious decision to stop throwing punches. He was done for the night and in need of saving. I think Spence is going to put Brook in the same position, and I don’t think it matters where the fight take place. Spence is going to be going after Brook’s vulnerable midsection from round 1 and looking to take him out the same way Golovkin did by hurting him to the body.
I think it would be a huge mistake for Spence’s promoter to agree to fight in Sheffield. If they’re going to agree to fight Brook in the UK, then they should at least not make the fight in his own hometown. I’m just saying. The best place for the Brook-Spence fight would be in a neutral country where it wouldn’t benefit either fighter, but that’s not how it goes in boxing. The fight is going to take place wherever the money can be made.
It also depends on whether the fight goes to a purse bid. Spence’s management might have a shot at winning the bid, and then staging the fight in the U.S someplace. The 26-year-rold Spence hasn’t yet built up a huge fan base in the U.S despite him being a 2012 Olympian. I don’t know what city would be the best for the Brook-Spence fight. New York or Las Vegas would probably be the best for the fight. It should be interesting to see if Spence’s management end up getting the Brook fight staged in the U.S.
I don’t buy what Hearn says about him being open to staging the Brook-Spence fight in the U.S. like we saw with Brook’s fight against Shawn Porter in 2014. I don’t think Hearn really wants Brook to be defending his IBF title in the U.S against a talent like Spence. Brook was very lucky to get a 12 round majority decision win over Shawn Porter in 2014.
A lot of boxing fans saw Brook winning a controversial decision. Brook basically held Porter each time he would come near him to throw punches, and the referee didn’t do anything to address the constant holding. It was clear that Brook was using constant clinching to keep Porter from throwing punches. When you hold as much as Brook was doing, the referee is supposed to take control over the fight and take points off and disqualify if need be. Instead, Brook held all night long and was never disqualified or penalized.
Even with all the holding, I had Porter winning the fight by a lopsided decision. I thought Porter landed the better shots in each round. It was an ugly fight to watch though due to Brook grabbing Porter repeatedly when he would attempt to get in punching range. Some of Brook’s boxing fans tried to justify the constant holding he was doing by saying that he did it to keep Porter from ramming heads with him when he was fighting on the inside.
That explanation doesn’t make sense because Brook was reaching with both arms to hold Porter when he was coming forward. It was incredibly obvious that Brook was gaming the system by using holding to keep Porter from fighting on the inside, and the referee should have done something about it to keep the fight under boxing rules rather than letting it turn into an MMA fight.