By Scott Gilfoid: If you’re wondering why welterweight Kell Brook isn’t so worried about fighting middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin for their fight on September 10 at 160, it’s because Brook weighs more than Golovkin. According to Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport, Brook is weighing 178 pounds right now. He’s actually training down to get to 160 rather than training to gain weight to make the limit. Hearn says that Brook was at 185, but lost seven pounds to get to 178.
This isn’t surprising because Brook says it himself that he’s been draining himself for a long, long time to strip off weight to fight at the 147lb limit at welterweight all these years. Brook says he’s in between a 154lb and 160lb fighter in terms of his true weight class.
This means that Brook is a small middleweight just like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and just like Golovkin, who rehydrates to only 170lbs for his fights at middleweight. Golovkin could fight at junior middleweight if he wanted to if he wanted to try and get an advantage over his opponents in terms of weight. Golovkin doesn’t play that. He likes to fight guys that are either the same size as him or bigger. In the case of Brook, he’s likely to be bigger than GGG.
I don’t expect Brook to take all that weight off to get to 160. He’ll likely strip off eight pounds or so to get to 170 and then lose the other 10 pounds by dehydrating the last two or three days before the weigh-in. Brook will then make weight and rehydrate up to the 170s.
Brook is right about the weight not being an issue for this fight against Golovkin, because it won’t be an issue. With Brook weighing the same as Golovkin, the fight is going to come down to who hits harder and who the better fighter is.
@AmosBoxing he's fit right now and has already lost 7lbs and is 178 – weight won't be a factor it will come down to ability
— Eddie Hearn (@EddieHearn) July 12, 2016
When asked about Brook’s walking around weight, Hearn said, “Heavier than GGG.”
What Brook can’t prepare for in this fight is the sudden huge power that he’s going to be getting hit with by Golovkin. I mean, when you go from fighting your entire career against welterweights, it’s going to be a shock to your system when suddenly you’re getting hit by a powerful middleweight with extraordinary punching power like Golovkin. It doesn’t matter if you weigh the same amount as him. When you’re used to getting hit by welterweights, and generally poor ones at that, it’s going to be a real problem when you start getting nailed by a middleweight like Triple G.
I still think Brook is going to be sluggish in this fight due to him carrying around extra weight that he’s not used to. I don’t think Brook is going to be able to adapt to being heavier by 10 to 15 pounds. The extra weight might help him in the first two or three rounds, but when the fight goes past round six, I think Brook is going to gas out just like Amir Khan did in his fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez last May. Just because you can suddenly carry around an extra 13 pounds in making weight at 160, doesn’t mean that you should use that an excuse to bulk up or in the case of Brook, stay in the 170s. I think Brook would be better off trimming down to his normal fighting weight and looking to try his best to beat Golovkin at that weight.