Kell Brook’s sparring partner expects him to beat Golovkin

By Boxing News - 08/20/2016 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: Gennady “GGG” Golovkin is coming into next months’ fight against Kell Brook as the favorite to win on September 10 and look good in doing so. However, Brook’s sparring partner Atif Sadiq thinks Golovkin is going to lose this fight due to Brook’s power and mental strength. Sadiq believes that Brook can adapt to any situation that presents itself in the ring in this fight.

Sadiq has only seen Golovkin fight at welterweight during his career against largely lesser fighters with the exception of Shawn Porter, who almost beat him in 2014. That was really close fight; although Brook’s fans think he beat Porter with ease. The reality was it was a close fight that saw the outcome come down to Brook holding Porter enough to keep him from throwing punches.

It would be easier to believe that the 30-year-old Brook has a chance to win this fight against Golovkin if he had some prior experience at middleweight against one of the fighters that he’s beaten during his career. If Brook had faced and beaten the likes of David Lemieux, Martin Murray and Willie Monroe Jr, we could believe that he has a chance in this fight. Brook hasn’t done that through. He’s beaten Kevin Bizier, Jo Jo Dan and Frankie Gavin in his last three fights.

Those guys were all technically highly ranked welterweights when Brook fought them, but in reality, you can argue that none of these guys deserved to be ranked in the top 15 at all. Brook has been making out well lately with the International Boxing Federation ranking mediocre welterweights highly. They finally got their act together recently in rating Errol Spence Jr. at No.2 with their organization, but even that ranking isn’t a great one because Spence should be No.1 in my view.

If the IBF is going to rate Jo Jo and Kevin Bizier at No.1, then it’s hard understand why they haven’t done that with an arguably much more talented fighter in Spence. Instead of Spence being able to fight Brook straightaway, he has to go through the formality of beating Leonard Bundu this Sunday in their fight at the Ford Amphitheater in Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York.

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“When people see him in the ring with GGG then they will know,” Sadiq said via the Sheffield Star. “Kell’s strength will really be a factor. He’ll be so much stronger. Another big advantage Kell has is his mental strength. Nothing gets to him. It’s what sets him apart. He’s not fazed by anything. It won’t be an upset for the gym when he wins – we expect him to beat GGG.”

Having great mental strength is a nice asset, but at some point, it’s just foolhardy to think you can beat someone that is far better than you. You can believe that you’re jump in the ocean and beat a great white shark in a wrestling match, but it’s just not going to happen. I think Brook is in the same situation. He’s used to beating weak fighters at welterweight that it’s clearly gone to his head and now he thinks he can beat the best fighter in the welterweight division. Brook thinks that he can get the same results that he’s been getting against weak opposition like Matthew Hatton, Hector Saldivia, Carson Jones and Luis Galarza. Beating those type of fighters doesn’t mean that Brook is going to be able to go in there and defeat Golovkin.

It doesn’t work like that in the real world. Beating fodder only means that you can definitely beat fodder. It doesn’t mean that you can beat Keith Thurman, Errol Spence and it definitely doesn’t mean that you can beat Golovkin. The only thing Brook has proven during his career is that he can defeat guys like Bizier, Dan, Gavin, Saldivia, Jones and Hatton. Brook hasn’t proven that he can beat Thurman, Spence and he hasn’t proven that he can beat Porter without clinching him all night long like an octopus.

“I’m heavy but I’m using this heaviness as I would as a welterweight – keeping the speed but I’m more vicious, more natural and stronger at this weight,” said Brook to skysports.com.

How does Brook know he’s more vicious? That sounds like something that Brook has convinced himself of being true, but in reality is likely a figment of his imagination. I’m just saying. Saying that you’re more vicious sounds like a judgment made on wishful thinking more than on what Brook is really doing. He might have been in a bad mood during one of his sparring sessions. Who knows? I don’t think a person changes by adding more or less size. They’re still the same person no matter what they weigh.

Adding more size does not mean that Brook will be faster or a bigger puncher. Brook keeps saying that he’s just as fast as he was since he bulked up to 176, but that’s just not possible. You can’t take a person like a track and field star and have them add 20 to 30 pounds and think they’re going to be as fast as they were before. You don’t get faster when you get heavier. You get slower, and you’re heart has to work harder to pump blood to all that new bulk. That means you get tired faster and you’re easier to hit.