By William Mackay: Kell “Special K” Brook plans on getting back in action by the end of this year after his successful surgery on his left eye socket. Brook, 31, had eye surgery to repair his fractured orbital bone on June 16. Brook’s eye is healing quickly, and he feels confident that he’ll be able to resume his boxing career in 2017.
Brook has said that he wants to fight Amir Khan. That fight might not be doable in 2017. It will depend on Khan. He’s the one that has seemingly been dragging his feet in making the Brook fight for the last couple of years.
This is an ambitious timeline for Brook in him wanting to get back inside the ring so soon after such a bad injury. It was the second broken eye socket that Brook had suffered. Last November, Brook’s right eye socket was broken by middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in a fight in London, England. The injury forced Brook’s trainer to throw in the towel in the 5th round. It’s unclear whether the new injury to Brook’s left eye is related to the previous injury or if there’s a weakness in the bones of his eyes.
The left eye injury came from Brook’s last fight against unbeaten Errol Spence Jr. on May 27 at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England. Brook (36-2, 25 KOs) gave Spence all he could handle before his eye problem caused him to bow out of the fight in the 11th round. Brook took a knee and was counted out by referee Howard John Foster. At the time, Brook’s vision was blurred from his injured left eye. Brook was no longer fighting effectively because his blurry vision and the pain from his injured eye.
“I spoke to the surgeon and he said that the operation was a big success and simpler than the last one,” said Brook.
Brook’s surgically repaired right eye held together fine in the Spence fight. The surgeon inserted a titanium plate into Brook’s right eye socket to strengthen it. It’s possible that the plate helped reinforce the eye to help Brook take shots without further injury. There’s no word yet whether a titanium plate was inserted into Brook’s left eye. It’s hoped that this will be the last eye injury for Brook.
Brook’s last 2 fights against Spence and Golovkin could have been different had he not been injured. Brook was ahead of Spence and Golovkin. Without the eye injuries, Brook would have had a chance to beat both of them. We’ll never know for sure though. The eye injuries wiped out any chance Brook had in beating those two fighters.
A rematch against either fighter would seem to be not in the cards at this point in Brook’s boxing career. He’s moving up to 154, and those two fighters are in other divisions. If Brook is going to fight a welterweight, it will only be Amir Khan. Brook is going to campaign as a junior middleweight now and go after all the belts in that division provided that he doesn’t suffer any additional eye injuries.
”I expect to make a full recovery and I want to fight again in 2017,” said Brook.
Brook’s next fight will probably take place in the 154 pound division against a serviceable opponent. It wouldn’t be a good idea for Brook to be rushed into a fight with Liam Smith, Liam Williams or the winner of the Miguel Cotto vs. Yoshihiro Kamegai. Brook needs get a confidence booster type of fight under his belt before he faces someone that is going to bring it full bore.
A healthy Brook would have an excellent chance of beating Smith, Williams, Cotto and Kamegai. But with Brook coming off back to back eye surgeries involving both of his eyes, he doesn’t need to take on too tough of an opponent in his next bout. Once Brook has tested his new surgically repaired left eye in battle in a warm-up fight, then it makes sense for him to look for a bigger fight against someone like Cotto, Liam Smith, Liam Williams, Jermell Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Erislandy Lara or Jarrett Hurd.
Those would be big fights for Brook to take. There all winnable fights for Brook as long as his eyes hold up under the pounding of the battle. One thing that is worrisome about Brook moving up to 154 is the power of the fighters in that division. They hit a lot harder at 154 than they do at 147.
If Brook does have a weakness in eye bones of both eye sockets, then he could suffer additional injuries in absorbing the harder shots in the 154 lb. division. We’ll have to find out if that’s going to be the case. A third consecutive broken eye socket would be a hint that Brook needs to consider retirement from boxing or a move back down to 147.
Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn wanted him to move up in weight to 154 before he fought Spence. Hearn saw it as a wise move for Brook to go straight to the junior middleweight division instead of him having to take off so much weight to get down to 147. Brook took the weight off, but he was fading in the second half of the fight with Spence.
“I still feel that I have a massive future in the sport,” said Brook. ”I will talk to my team in the coming weeks about what we can do next and I am looking to get back into camp this summer.”
There are two things that will determine whether Brook can have a “massive future” in boxing from this point forward. Brook’s future at 154 will be determined by these things:
– Eye health: Brook won’t go far in the junior middleweight division if his eyes don’t hold together from the pounding from the big punchers at 154.
– Stamina: Brook has shown a pattern in many of his fights in the last 6 years in which he starts quickly, but he then fades in the second half of his fights. It could be that Brook’s struggles to make the 147 lb. weight limit has caused him to gas out in the second half of his fights. But it could also be that Brook doesn’t have the stamina needed for him to fight well for 12 rounds. Brook might be just a 6 round fighter. There are a lot of fighters that are in that category. They fight well for 6 rounds, but they then gas out and are fighting on fumes in the last 6 rounds. If Brook calls into that category, then it’s unlikely that hell do well at 154. This is a division that you cannot afford to gas out in the last 6 rounds. If Brook fades against Jermell Charlo, Jarrett Hurd or Miguel Cotto, it could be disastrous for him.
Even if Brook no longer has a “massive future” in the sport, he can still get a big payday fight against Amir Khan if the two of them face each other soon. That’s a fight that will give Brook a big payday. If that’s Brook’s last important fight of his boxing career, then it’s still fine, because he’ll make a lot of money from that fight and be able to live off of it for the rest of his life if he doesn’t blow it all on something.
Losing my belt was gutting but I’m glad I accepted to fight Spence and help be part of an event that Sheffield will remember and be proud of,” said Brook.
There’s no shame in Brook losing his IBF title to Spence. Brook at least took the fight with him instead of vacating the belt. If Brook can carry his talent over to the 154 pound division, then he should be able to win titles in that weight class as well. That would be a big accomplishment for Brook to win a world title and hold onto it at 154.