By Scott Gilfoid: Former cruiserweight champion Johnny Nelson believes that underdog Kell Brook (36-0, 25 KOs) has the size, power, boxing skills and the speed to pull off a huge upset against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) in their fight in two months from now on September 10.
Nelson admits that the 30-year-old Brook doesn’t have the same kind of punching power as the hard hitting Golovkin, but he thinks that he makes up for that in the other areas of his game.
The question will Brook be able to hang around long enough for his speed and technical skills to help him in this fight? We saw how Carson Jones was able to hurt Brook and wear him down with right hands to the head in their fight in 2012.
I had Brook losing that fight. I think he would have been knocked out in the 12th round if the referee hadn’t stopped the action to give Jones a warning for something while he was trying to finish off a badly hurt Brook.
“I believe Kell has the punching power, the speed and the boxing ability,” said Nelson to skysports.com. “Kell is very strong at middleweight, people don’t realize that, and that’s why he’s so successful at welterweight. Probably, this will be a gradual progression for him to step up the weights because he could do that pretty easily.”
I do agree that Brook is really a middleweight or at least a junior middleweight. He sure as heck isn’t a welterweight. I see Brook as one of those Saul “Canelo” Alvarez type fighters that are good at taking off a bunch of water weight to fight in a division that isn’t suited towards his body weight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTTl_55VRE0
I can’t understand why Brook would want to fight at welterweight, because it gives him a weight and power advantage against true welterweights. But if you were to take one of the Charlo brothers, Erislandy Lara or Demetrius Andrade and have them melt down to fight in the 147lb division the way that Brook is doing, I think they would do very well because they would have a weight advantage over their opponents.
It’s the same with Brook. The guy is a junior middleweight fighting at welterweight, and that clearly helps him. As such, the size difference between Brook and Golovkin will be almost nothing. If anything, Golovkin might have maybe four or five pounds over Brook on fight night. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if Brook comes into the fight at the same exact weight as Golovkin, because Brook has one of those bodies that is capable adding a lot of weight. I think Brook can fight at 180 quite easily. I don’t think it would help him to be that big against Golovkin, but I’m just saying. I think Brook could fight at 180 on September 10 if he wanted to.
Doesn't get bigger then this! #2weight #2time
— Kell Brook (@SpecialKBrook) July 9, 2016
“This isn’t an impossible task. He has to stick to a game-plan. Kell is, without a doubt, the better technical fighter, Golovkin is clearly the bigger puncher. It’s a hard slog for Kell but it’s a possibility,” said Nelson. “If Kell pulls this off, he will be rated pound-for-pound among the best because he will have pulled off a feat that nobody else has done.”
If Brook fails to win the fight against Golovkin, and if he gets knocked out, he’ll be viewed as another statistic for the Kazakhstan fighter. In other words, Brook would be viewed as knockout No.23 and no more than that.
I think there’s a very good chance that Brook’s stamina will limit what he can do in this fight. When you get a fight that suddenly doesn’t have to worry about weight and can bulk up a little, they tend to forget that their putting a great strain on their cardiovascular system to pump all that blood to the added mass.
The fighter that bulks up tends to wear down in the second half of their fights. We saw that with Khan getting tired in the 6th round in his last fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. That added weight that Khan put on had to have been a huge factor for him in causing him to tire out.
Believe me, if Brook fades by the 6th round against Golovkin, then the fight will be over by the 7th unless Golovkin just wants to toy with him to make it interesting for the fight fans. I can see Brook suffering a bloody beak, and getting busted up badly if Golovkin doesn’t finish him off. It might be better for Brook that the fight ends sooner rather than later, because if he doesn’t have a real chance of winning this fight, then there’s no reason for him to take needless punishment at the hands of Golovkin.
Brook says he can move down to 147 to continue to defend his IBF title win lose or draw against Golovkin. However, I think Brook’s time as the IBF champion is reaching the end. He’ll need to fight Errol Spence Jr. soon, and I don’t think he can beat Spence. It might be better for Brook to stay at middleweight or move to 154 rather than face Spence and take a potential second knockout loss.
Brook can’t put the Spence fight off for long unless he can get unification fights against Jessie Vargas, Danny Garcia and Keith Thurman. I don’t see those fights happening anytime soon. Brook could get the fight against Vargas if his promoters at Top Rank are willing to accept whatever offer Brook’s promoter Hearn makes. Never the less, Brook is still going to need to fight Spence if he holds onto his IBF title. He might want to shuck that one away as fast possible so that he doesn’t have to remain in the hot seat and be the one that Spence blasts out to win his first world title. Spence is seen as the true replacement for Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the minds of many boxing fans. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if Spence were able to beat Golovkin, because he’s that kind of a talent.