By Scott Gilfoid: IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua thinks that weight could play an important part in the September 10 fight between IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and Kell Brook at the O2 Arena in London, UK. While Brook is going to be fighting in front of his own loyal British fans, he’s going to be giving away weight to the naturally bigger, stronger and dare I say more talented Triple G.
Joshua thinks the weight could be a factor in this fight because of Brook being a welterweight and needing to come up two divisions to fight Golovkin. It isn’t just weight though that will hamper Brook.
Golovkin is just naturally a very powerful guy. He’s one of those type of fighters that is going to be much stronger than you even if you weight the same amount as him. Heck, even if you’re heavier than Golovkin, he still appears stronger than many guys that are bigger than him.
“The weight issue is quite interesting,” Joshua said to skysports.com. “Weight does play a big part in this sport and in anything below heavyweight it plays a massive part, so it’s very possible, but I hope Kell Brook does well. It would’ve been Golovkin-Eubank Jr and the same weight makes sense, but all credit to Kell Brook for taking that fight without hesitation.”
Brook isn’t going to lose to Golovkin due to the weight issue. Let’s be serious. If Brook was in the same division as Golovkin, he’d still be in a world of hurt against him. This is more of a talent thing than weight. It’s also a punching power thing. Golovkin just has scary power, and that power is devastating for even guys his own size. If Brook was a middleweight like Golovkin, he’ still be horribly over-matched against him. I think Brook would be over-matched against guys like Billy Joe Saunders and Daniel Jacobs. It’s a talent thing. Those guys appear to have more talent than Brook. There’s not much you can do about that.
Kell didn’t have to take the fight with Golovkin if he didn’t want to. He could have told his promoter Eddie Hearn that he wasn’t interested in taking the fight with the Kazakhstan fighter when he offered it to him. Obviously, this is a chance of a lifetime opportunity for Brook, so it was probably impossible for him to say no to that kind of fight. Brook has a chance to make between $4 million to $6.5 million for the Golovkin fight. Brook isn’t going to make that kind of money fighting guys like Kevin Bizier, Jo Jo Dan and Frankie Gavin, the last three guys that he’s faced.
Hearn hasn’t been able to get the other top welterweights to fight Brook, which might have something to do with the glacially slow way that Brook has been brought along in his career. Brook is a 12-year pro, but he’s been matched carefully through most of his career in being put in with lesser fighters.
Brook’s promoters should have started putting him in with world class opposition in his second or third year as a pro rather than waiting until his 10th year, which is when Brook fought Shawn Porter. A big mistake that Hearn made was after matching him against Porter, he went back to putting him in with fodder opposition for his last three fights instead of keeping him at world class. In some ways, Brook’s recent match-making is a lot like Chris Eubank Jr’s.
Last year, Eubank Jr. beat Gary O’Sullivan in a WBA middleweight title eliminator. O’Sullivan was a fringe contender at the time. Eubank Jr. should have then challenged WBA middleweight champion Daniel Jacob for his title. He didn’t do that. Eubank Jr. went back to fighting domestic level opposition in fighting Nick Blackwell and Tom Doran in his last two fights. Brook has kind of done the same thing with his three straight soft jobs since clinching his way to a 12 round decision over Porter in 2014.
All I can say is that Brook is kind of over-matched against Golovkin. He can go about fighting him any number of ways on September 10. My suggestion is for Brook to understand that the fight will be seen by millions of boxing fans, not just in the UK. It’s going to be seen worldwide. If Brook wants to get out of this fight with some popularity, he needs to stand and fight Golovkin. In other words, Brook shouldn’t use the bag of tricks that he used in the Porter fight by electing to clinch all night long to keep him from throwing punching. That’ll look so bad if Brook holds all night long. I don’t think it’ll work either. It’ll just make Brook look like he’s afraid to fight.
Brook also shouldn’t run from Golovkin. It won’t work and it’ll make him look bad. I think Brook should try and be a hero and fight Golovkin. If he’s got the talent and the power, then he’ll win. If he doesn’t, then it wasn’t meant to be. Brook shouldn’t try and game the system by holding all night long because it’ll look so bad if that’s what he ends up trying. I give Amir Khan credit for the way he fought Saul “Canelo” Alvarez last May. Khan could have chosen to clinch all night long or run, but he didn’t. He fought Canelo and did a good job of it for the first five rounds before he gassed out and was stopped in the 6th. Brook should do the same thing.