By Scott Gilfoid: As far as Paulie Malignaggi is concerned, the Kell Brook vs. Errol Spence Jr. fight is a toss-up match where either guy can win. Brook and Spence are expected to fight on May 27 rather than May 20, and it’s going to be taking place in Sheffield, England. Brook will have the home advantage, as Sheffield is where he lives.
Malignaggi feels that Brook might have problems with cutting weight to get down to the 147lb limit for the fight. Malignaggi thinks that Spence could win the fight because of Brook having to cut weight to get to the 147lb limit. However, Malignaggi also gives Brook a good chance of beating Spence because he doesn’t like the way Spence has reacted in the past when he takes shots.
Malignaggi has seen something he doesn’t like with Spence when he gets hit cleanly. Indeed, Spence was hurt by a big shot from Emmanuel Lartey (16-3-1, 7 KOs) in their fight on October 14, 2013. Lartey is a tough fighter from Ghana, and he nailed Spence with a big punch late in the fight that clearly hurt him. However, Spence was able to recover the shot and use his boxing skills to win an 8 round unanimous decision by the scores 79-73, 79-73 and 79-73. Lartey would later give contender Felix Diaz all he could handle in losing a close 8 round split decision in his next fight in April 2014.
“Both guys are at risk,” said Malignaggi to Fighthype.com about Kell Brook and Errol Spence in talking about their fight on May 27. “Brook is at risk because of the weight cut. Spence is at risk because I’ve seen him touched here and there very rarely in his career and he doesn’t react as good to my liking as I’d like to see him when he’s getting hit. Brook is not just a regular guy hitting you. Brook can put your lights out and be sharp. So both guys have a very big risk factor going into this fight. Anybody can win that fight,” said Malignaggi about the Brook vs. Spence fight.
I don’t agree with Malignaggi that this is a toss-up fight. I think Spence will easily win the fight against Brook. I see Spence’s last opponent Leonard Bundu as being a tougher fight for him than Brook. The reason for that is because Brook can’t handle body shots. His entire game is built on making opponents miss with their head shots.
We saw how Gennady “GGG” Golovkin missed with his power shots to the head all night long in his fight against Brook last September. It took Golovkin five rounds to figure out how to hurt Brook by going to his body in the 5th. Even after Golovkin hurt Brook to the body, he went right back to the head and wasted a lot of punches with his shots upstairs until Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle threw in the towel to have the fight stopped.
When asked if Brook is making the right decision to fight Spence, Malignaggi said, “No, I don’t know if it’s the right decision. But from the boxing standpoint, I think he’s making the right decision.”
Malignaggi was gushing about Brook’s talent in his fight against Golovkin. Brook was working the fight as a commentator for Sky Sports, and he had Brook winning a number of rounds. Malignaggi also felt that Brook won round 4, which appeared to be a clear Golovkin round.
