By Scott Gilfoid: British junior middleweight champion Liam Williams (15-0-1, 10 KOs) has been sparring with unbeaten Kell Brook (36-0, 25 KOs) to get him ready for his fight against Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, and he’s come to the conclusion that he’s a better fighter the Kazakhstan fighter. Williams thinks Brook is a fighter technically than GGG.
What this all means is hard to decipher, because being a better technically than another fighter doesn’t mean that you’re going to beat them obviously. For the sake of argument, let’s pretend that Brook is a better fighter than Golovkin technically by a slight amount.
If Golovkin is the MUCH harder puncher of the two, then it sure as heck doesn’t matter that Brook is better technically. The fact of the matter is that if Golovkin’s power is world’s better than Brook’s, then he wins the fight, period.
“Kell is a fighter who can go on the back foot or come forward and have a go. I rate him very highly, he’s got everything. Ability-wise, I think he is on another level than GGG. He is technically better, definitely,” said Williams about Brook to The Star.
So, Brook has decided to try and get ready to fight the best fighter in the middleweight division by sparring a domestic level fighter in Liam Williams. Oh dear, it doesn’t sound like Brook had his thinking cap on when he came up with that brilliant idea. Why didn’t Brook choose an actual world class contender to help him with sparring for Golovkin?
What I would like to know is how on earth does Liam Williams know that Brook is a better fighter than Golovkin when he hasn’t even fought or sparred with Golovkin before? Yeah, Williams can give an opinion about Brook being a very good fighter technically after sparring him, but his frame of referee is based on the domestic level fodder that he’s fought.
Williams can’t begin to expound on what Brook would do against Golovkin unless he actually fought or sparred with him in the past, right? As such, I think what Williams says about Brook being a better fighter technically than Golovkin is entirely meaningless. Williams might as well been saying that Brook knows more about physics than Golovkin because it would amount to the same. It would be all guesswork on Williams’ part.
Williams says he was selected as Brook’s sparring partner because his fighting style is the most like Golovkin’s in the UK. I had to take a look at Williams’ last fight against Gary Corcoran from last July to see if it’s true that he’s similar to Golovkin. After watching six rounds of that fight, I must conclude that Williams has about as much in common as Golovkin as Kell Brook does. In other words, he’s nothing like Golovkin. The only thing that Williams and Golovkin have in common is that they’re both 5’10”. You take that away, and there are no similarities at all. Williams doesn’t hit as hard, he’s not as talented, and his defense is like Swiss cheese.
“I was told I had the most similar style to Golovkin in this country,” said Williams. “I have seen no vulnerability with Kell; he can take a punch. It depends how he takes the shots and deals with the pressure. If he does well there, he wins,” said Williams.
I guess Brook has been wearing headgear during his sparring sessions with Williams. On September 10, Brook WON’T be wearing headgear against Golovkin when they get inside the ring at the O2 Arena in London, England. I also noticed that Williams isn’t much of a body puncher. Golovkin WILL be throwing vicious body punches at Brook. It’s also doubtful that Williams sparred Brook for 12 full rounds at full bore.
Golovkin will be coming at Golovkin like a runaway locomotive looking to take his body apart and take his head off with every shot he throws on the night. As such, it doesn’t bode too well for Brook on the night. Williams can certainly flap his gums about how Brook is going to beat GGG, but it’s so, so meaningless. It’s too bad that Williams didn’t get inside the ring with Golovkin to test out his power for some sparring sessions.
Williams says that Brook didn’t hurt him during their sparring sessions. It would be very interesting to hear if Williams would say the same thing after he had some sparring sessions with Golovkin. Williams says that he and Brook went all out some of the time. I think if Golovkin went all out 100 percent with Williams, it would be over quickly with him getting blown out of the ring during the sparring session. I’m just saying.
“I haven’t been rocked in the sessions but there have been a few rounds where we have given it to each other,” said Williams about Brook. “GGG has a ridiculously hard punch. It all depends on whether Kell can deal with the pressure and all the shots coming his way.”
So now Williams knows how hard Golovkin punches. How can Williams know how hard Golovkin hits if he hasn’t sparred with him? It’s so useless to hear people talk about how hard GGG punches if they haven’t been inside the ring with him and felt his punches.
Williams rates Brook’s chances of winning based on how well he handles the pressure from Golovkin. I don’t think it matters whether Brook handles the pressure from Golovkin. I still see Brook getting knocked into oblivion in this fight by Triple G. Brook can fight the perfect fight by holding nonstop each round, running and jabbing to keep from getting hit, but he’s going to get hit sooner or later. This isn’t baseball where you’re dealing with a pitcher throwing a perfect game. Golovkin is going to get his at bats and going to get a hit in this fight, and when this happens, I see Brook dropping for the 10 count. It doesn’t matter where the punch from Golovkin lands. Brook is going to go down for the count when GGG does land one of his big bombs.
Next time Brook prepares for an important fight, he needs to find some better sparring partners than Williams if he wants to have a better chance of winning. It’s almost a slight on Golovkin that Brook has chosen to spar with a domestic level fighter like Williams rather than having his promoter Eddie Hearn find him a talented guy like Tureano Johnson to help him get ready for the fight. After a full training camp with Williams, Brook would either be ready for a fight against Golovkin or a trip to the infirmary. Johnson isn’t a sparring partner, but he might have agreed to help Brook out if Hearn came up with some cash to get him over to England. That’s what I would have done.
I wouldn’t have used Liam Williams for sparring, because I would have realized that I needed a talented fighter with ability, power and the ability to pressure. I would have been thinking Tureano Johsnon straightaway. Of course, it would have been a grueling training camp for Brook if Tureano came over to help, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Brook were to get knocked over many times by this talented middleweight. At least Brook know what he’s up against though in facing GGG.