By Scott Gilfoid: Errol Spence Jr. is absolutely unafraid of fighting in hostile territory on Saturday night in facing IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook in front of his own British boxing fans at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England. Spence, 27, sees Brook as the one with the pressure on him, as he’s fighting in front of his own fans and there will be an extra heavy burden on his square shoulders on the night. The fans will be trying to encourage Brook, 31, to fight harder so that he can come home with the ‘W’, but it might work in reverse.
Brook might lose his mind in front of the fans, thinking he can out-punch a talent with more power, size and ability than himself. We saw that happen to Brook last September when the large Britisch crowd whipped him into frenzy in his fight against middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin at the O2 Arena in London, England. Brook had a game plan on the night to try and box, and frustrate Golovkin.
Unfortunately, Brook seemed to lose his senses completely once he heard the roar of the crowd in round 1. Almost immediately, Brook scrapped his carefully planned game plan and began to slug. It didn’t take long before Brook was staggering around the ring with a busted right eye from a powerhouse left hand from Golovkin in round 1. From that point on, Brook had no chance of winning. It was a full scale retreat from him for the next 4 rounds.
”If I have to stand toe to toe, if I have to box, whatever it takes I am coming back with that title. There is always more pressure when you fight at home,” said Spence to Sky Sports News HQ.
I wouldn’t waste effort on trying to box Brook if I were Spence. The reason for that is the fight taking place in Sheffield. If all Brook does is land 4 punches per round, I can see him winning the rounds over and over. Look at Brook’s last fight against Triple G. Brook would land 4 or 5 punches that would cause the pro-Brook crowd to squawk loudly, making it seem like he was doing better than he actually was. In the meantime, Golovkin was nailing Brook with 30 huge power shots to the head and body. The crowd wouldn’t make a peep when Golovkin would land.
So who do you think the judges were scoring the rounds for? You guessed it. Brook was getting a lot of the rounds despite Golovkin landing at a higher volume and with much better power. If Golovkin had tried to box Brook for 12 rounds instead of trying to punch his lights out, he probably would have lost the fight, because the judges were giving round after round to Brook.
Heck, one judge had Brook up 3 rounds to 1. How in the world does a judge see the same fight that I saw and give Brook 3 rounds? I wish I could have seen the scoring for that judge of the 5th round before it was stopped, because it would be interesting to see how he was scoring that one before Brook was stopped. Spence needs to forget about boxing Brook. He’s in Brook’s backyard. If Spence doesn’t try and smash Brook in every round, I think he’ll lose a decision. That’s my prediction. If Spence boxes Brook, he loses a wide and very, very controversial decision.
The thing is, I doubt Brook will lose any sleep over beating Spence by a controversial decision. I can’t see Brook giving Spence a rematch if he beats him in a fight that the boxing public thought he should have lost. Look at what Brook did after his controversial clinch-filled win over Shawn Porter. Brook didn’t give Porter a rematch. Instead, he went the other direction and started with a series of easy title defenses of his IBF strap against Frankie Gavin, Jo Jo Dan and Kevin Bizier.
Spence shouldn’t recreate the wheel when it comes to the fight against Brook. Golovkin and Carson Jones already created the blue print in how to deal Brook a defeat. The way you beat Brook is by pressuring him and hitting him with a lot of shots. I know Jones lost to Brook in both fights, but he beat him in the first fight in my opinion. The way that Jones did it was by pressuring Brook, hammering him with power shots until his beak was broken and bleeding. Once Brook saw his own blood dripping onto his trunks, he seemed to lose it mentally from that point on and he took a bad beating.
It’s going to be motivation, everybody going against me and wanting to see Kell Brook win,” said Spence about fighting Brook in hostile environment at Bramall Lane on Saturday. “That’s all motivation for me, and will get me going looking to win this title fight.”
I wouldn’t see it as a positive if I were Spence that he’s fighting in Brook’s territory. It’s actually a huge negative. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya thinks it’s a mistake for a fighter as talented as Spence to be putting himself in the position where he could be robbed in the UK. De La Hoya sees Spence as too talented to be putting himself in a spot where he could wind up losing a controversial decision in Brook’s backyard.
It’s not a good deal for Spence because the casual boxing fans won’t know that Spence should have won the fight, Those fans will just see that Spence has a loss on his record, and they’ll figure that it means that good. Spence could beat Brook by a shutout, but if he still loses the fight, the casual boxing fans will only be able to go on the fact that he came up short. These are obviously fans that weren’t able to see the Brook-Spence fight.
Obviously, the fans that actually watch the Brook vs. Spence fight would be screaming bloody murder if Spence loses to Brook by a robbery. I happen to agree with De La Hoya about Spence not needing to fight in the UK. When you’ve got the talent like Spence, you don’t put yourself in the position where you can be robbed by going to a foreign country and fighting in front of a horde of hostile fans. You stay in your own country and become an icon. We’ve seen plenty of great fighters in the past lose when they go into another fighter’s country to fight. Look what happened to Mexican boxing great Juan Manuel Marquez when he fought Chris John in 2006 in John’s home country of Indonesia. Marquez lost a highly controversial 12 round unanimous decision. There were a lot of angry boxing fans that saw the fight and felt that Marquez was robbed. Boxing News 24 scored the Marquez-John fight 11 rounds to 1 in Marquez’s favor. It was totally one-sided. But the fight showed you what happens with visiting fighters venture into another fighter’s country to fight a fan favorite.
Will Spence be another Marquez in getting beaten by the Chris John-like Kell Brook or will Spence do the smart thing by looking to knock Brook out the way that Golovkin did? If I was Spence’s trainer, I’d have already given him his game plan for the fight and that would be make sure you knock Brook out. Spence cannot leave any doubts in the minds of the boxing fans and the judges who the better fighter is. Even if Spence wins a 12 round decision, it would allow Brook to muddy the waters by claiming he was robbed. You don’t think Brook would do that? I do. Look at how Brook muddied the waters after his loss to Golovkin. Instead of giving Golovkin credit for a job well done, Brook has been saying he fight would have been different if not for his eye injury. Come on, the fight wouldn’t have been different. Brook would have been knocked out just the same, but it would have taken another round or two before Golovkin hit Brook in the bread basket with a power shot that would have stopped him from throwing punches in the same way we saw in the 5th round.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNF05hgwIZc