Brook-Spence: Thurman not confident with Kell

By Boxing News - 05/22/2017 - Comments

Image: Brook-Spence: Thurman not confident with Kell

By Scott Gilfoid: WBA/WBC welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman has doubts about whether Kell Brook will be able to get past Errol Spence Jr. this Saturday night in their fight on Sky Box Office PPV in the UK. Thurman realize what Brook is up against in facing the 27-year-old knockout artist Spence.

Thurman’s interest and concern for Brook (36-1, 25 KOs) suggests that he might be hoping that he beats Spence so that the two of them can face each other. Thurman has never seemed interested in fighting Spence in the past.

It’s a bad match-up for Brook, and it’s coming at the worst time of his career. This fight is the perfect storm for Brook. He’s coming off an eye injury, a beating, and to top it off, he had to loss ton of weight in training camp. I couldn’t imagine a worst set of circumstances for Brook if I tried. But to add to that, Brook is going to be fighting in front of a stadium full of his British boxing fans on Saturday night, and they’re going to be rooting him on.

The reason why that’s bad is because when fighters are egged on by their fans, they tend to fight in a sloppy manner by not thinking clearly. Boxing is a thinking man’s sport. But when you get fighters battling in front of big group of their fans, they sometimes try and impress. We saw that with Brook last September in his loss to Gennady Golovkin. Brook wasn’t fighting in a smart manner. He was trying to slug with Golovkin in the first 2 rounds, and this resulted in Brook suffering an eye injury.

Thurman thinks it’s going to be hard on Brook with him having lost his last fight to Gennady Golovkin, and put on a lot of weight. To Brook’s credit, he’s lost the weight and looks to be in good shape in the final days before the Spence (21-0, 18 KOs) fight this Saturday night at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England.

What we don’t know is how the combination of the huge weight loss and the beat down from Triple G is going to affect the 31-year-old Brook. He’s not exactly a spring chicken. All you need to do is look at Brook’s first fight against Carson Jones in 2012 and compare it to his last match against Golovkin to see how much hand speed he’s lost in the last 5 years. Brook was a lot faster in 2012, and more mobile as well.

Brook doesn’t look anything like the fighter that he once was which shows you how quickly some fighter’s age. It doesn’t take long in boxing for fighters to start deteriorating. Thurman isn’t saying what he would have done if he was beaten like Brook in a fight against GGG. However, Thurman didn’t understand why Brook made the move in the first place to go up 2 entire divisions to fight Golovkin instead of staying at 147. Thurman says there is too many big fights at welterweight that Brook could have taken without him need to go up to 160 to face Golovkin.

“I just don’t like coming off a big fight, and a big loss, then taking this one back down at 147,” said Thurman to skysports.com in taking about Brook moving back down to 147 to face Spence after losing to Golovkin. “The one thing I do like is he got out of the Golovkin fight before he suffered more damage, so it wasn’t too severe and as a fighter, seeing them back in the ring is great.”

Brook didn’t really get beaten too badly by Golovkin. Brook was on the run most of the fight, and it was only in the 5th round that Golovkin stared to nail him with big shots. If Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle hadn’t pulled him out of the fight in the 5th, he would have taken a furious beating by Golovkin. However, I don’t think Brook would have made it out of the 5th. Before Ingle threw in the towel, Brook was taking big shots and he wasn’t throwing anything back.

Brook was just trying to use head movement to avoid Golovkin’s punches while taunting him. Golovkin was missing a lot of his punches, but he was starting to nail Brook with chopping shots that he had no way of ducking. Brook ducked the hooks that Golovkin was throwing, but when he started to chop down on him with big shots, Brook was getting hit hard.

You could tell how hurt Brook was after the fight was stopped by referee Marlon Wright. Brook’s first three steps to his corner were staggering ones. Brook was doing a good job of trying to fake that he wasn’t getting hurt by Golovkin in the 5th, but he clearly VERY hurt.

“But it’s just hard for me to be confident with Kell Brook because to me he hasn’t proved it. We will see what he’s got,” said Thurman.

It’s obvious that Brook has never proven himself as a fighter at 147. Brook’s only good opponent was Shawn Porter, who he held all night long in clinch after clinch. Brook should have been disqualified by the referee for bending the rules in that fight.

Here are the best fighters that Brook has faced at welterweight during his career:

– Shawn Porter: Brook constantly held Porter all night long to keep him from throwing punches. The referee should have disqualified Brook for his excessive holding in my opinion. Due to all the holding Brook did in the fight, I can’t count that as win because he was gaming the system.

– Carson Jones

– Matthew Hatton

– Jo Jo Dan

– Frankie Gavin

– Kevin Bizier

– Vyacheslav Senchenko

So there it is, folks. Those are the best fighters Brook has fought at welterweight. Thurman is ABSOLUTELY correct in saying that Brook hasn’t proven himself at 147. I don’t know why Brook’s promoters have matched him so softly during his career. He should have fought better opposition than he has. It almost looks like Brook’s promoters got stuck matching him against domestic level fodder, and forgot to start moving him forward against the world class contenders.

If the idea was to build a fighter with an inflated resume over weak opposition, then Brook’s promoters succeeded quite well at that job. Brook has nice group of fodder opposition that he’s padded his record with since he turned pro. But it’s a double-edged sword. When you only pad your record against awful opposition, then you’re out of your class when you’re forced to defend against a talented mandatory challenger like Errol Spence Jr. Thurman seems to realize that, which is why he has doubts whether Brook will be able to get past Spence on Saturday night.

“I feel very good, I am very close to the weight, and 147 here we come,” said Brook to skysports.com. “Dominic (Ingle) has put me through it in training, I have had to dig in deep, and I am excited. I am ready for a war. I prepared for a war and I prepared for a fantastic fight.”

If Brook and Ingle are thinking clearly about Saturday’s fight with Spence, they’re going to be thinking defense more so that turning into an all-out war.

If Brook decides to trade with Spence, it would be playing to his strengths rather than his weaknesses. I don’t know if there is any weakness in Spence’s game right now. The only thing I can see as a flaw in Spence’s game is he seems to tire a little in fast pace fights. If Brook can make Spence chase him for the first 8 rounds, he might be able to jump on him in the last part of the fight to knock him out.

I wouldn’t go after Spence in the first 7 rounds if I were Brook, because he’s too powerful in that part of the fight for Brook to beat him by fighting him by going to war. Without the size advantage, Brook is going to be up the creek without a paddle against Spence. Brook is usually the bigger guy compared to his opponents. He won’t be against Spence.

I don’t think Brook is ready for any kind of war on Saturday night. Brook isn’t that type of fighter. He’s always been the type of fighter that lands two or three shots before either tying up his opponent or getting on his bike to escape from them. Brook tried to go to war against Golovkin and we saw how that one ended up.

To some boxing fans, Spence is seen as the welterweight division’s version of Golovkin but in a smaller package. Brook can’t afford to make the same mistake twice by thinking he can come to blows with a talent and powerhouse like Spence. Believe me, if Brook tries to trade power shots against Spence, it’s going to be a disaster for him. We’re talking doomsday.

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