By Scott Gilfoid: Promoter Frank Warren wonders how bulking up is going to help Kell Brook against Gennady Golovkin when these two unbeaten fighters face each other next month on September 10 at the O2 Arena in London, England. Warren specifically thinks that Brook could be slowed up with the added weight that he’s put on recently.
The added weight that he 30-year-old Brook has put on could slow him up on the night against Golovkin, who is quite excellent at cutting off the ring on his opponents. Brook weighed in this week at 176 pounds for the World Boxing Council’s 30-day weigh-in for the fight.
While Brook’s fans were giving him a lot of credit for being so heavy, Warren questions whether this is a wise thing for him. Golovkin weighed in at considerably lighter at 165lbs, and is just five pounds away from the 160lb weight limit for the fight.
Brook will need to take off the 176lbs to make weight. I don’t think for a second that Brook’s weight will budge from where it is now in terms of him trimming down. He’ll very likely just dehydrate the 16 pounds to get down to 160 during the last week before the fight to make weight. Brook will then rehydrate back up to 176 to enjoy a large weight advantage over Golovkin. Is this a smart move? Nah, I think it’s dumb, but what can you say? Brook and his trainer Dominic Ingle has their plan and it looks like they feel their best chance of beating Golovkin is to be bigger than him.
“It appears he is bulking up and his team probably believe that will give him more strength on the night. But it could also slow him up and how is that going to help against a puncher like Golovkin?” said Warren in his column at the dailystar.
I totally agree with Mr. Warren. I think Brook is going to be slowed down by all the weight that he puts on for this fight, and that’s going to hurt him when he gets inside the ring with GGG. It would be far better for Brook to fight at his normal weight and just try his best to be elusive in the ring against Triple G.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LTNbsnpffU
With the fight being staged in Brook’s home country of England, there’s a chance that he could wind a decision if the fight goes to the scorecards. I mean, the crowd will be cheering for everything that Brook does inside the ring on September 10. If Brook even gives Golovkin a stern look, I expect t the crowd to be yelling their heads off. The judges, being human, will possibly be influenced by anything that Brook does inside the ring that results in the crowd cheering. The only problem is that Golovkin turns judges into useless people during his fights by him going out and knocking out his opponents. They might as well have three mannequins positioned in the judges’ chairs on the night because they’ll be about as useful in playing a part in the final results from the fight. Still, Brook’s best chance of winning the fight is to use his feet, jab and be elusive for 12 rounds. He cannot stand and fight Golovkin, because he doesn’t have the same kind of punching power and he won’t likely be able to stand up to his huge power. If Brook can at least make it to the final bell in the 12th round, he might be able to grind out a controversial 12 round decision. The boxing world would likely scream foul if Brook wins a controversial decision, but there will likely be enough of his fans to drown out the negative feedback that would result. Golovkin would likely be told by Brook’s fans to ‘just live with it’ and ‘take your loss like a man’ and the only thing he could do is to try and get a rematch so he could clear up the controversy. A rematch would likely take place in the UK, and he would be facing the same situation where he might need to get a knockout to win.
“Apparently the Sheffield fighter weighing in 11 pounds heavier than Kazakh KO star Golovkin is a good thing. But I don’t see it like that at all I’m afraid,” said Warren. “The only thing I take from the check weigh-in is just how good Golovkin’s conditioning is and that is not good news for Brook,” said Warren.
Yes, I agree with Warren that it’s not a good thing that Golovkin is in great shape at 165 pounds already for the Brook fight. Golovkin won’t have to struggle to make the 160lb weight limit during training camp or during the week of the fight. It’s hard on a fighter when they’ve got to take off 16 pounds of water weight or fat to get down to the 160lb weight limit for their fights.
Like I said, I don’t see Brook losing any additional weight during training camp for the Golovkin fight. What I see him doing is just dehydrating the 16 pounds off to get down to 160 during the week of the fight. Brook will make weight at 160, and the promptly bloat up to 176 by drinking a ton of water overnight after the weigh-in. Brook will indeed be heavier than Golovkin, but slower and likely weak from having shifted a huge amount of weight in just 24 hours.
I suspect that Brook will be strong during the first three or four rounds if he lasts that long. However, the added weight that he puts on will slow him down, make him hittable, and prevent him from getting out of the way of Golovkin’s huge shots. It really doesn’t matter how much weight Brook puts on for this fight. His head will still be just as vulnerable as it was before he put all that weight on. I don’t see it helping Brook absorb the huge punches from Golovkin in this fight.
If Golovkin decides to focus his attention to Brook’s body, as he did in his win over former International Boxing Federation middleweight champion David Lemieux last October, then it won’t help him being heavy for the fight. In other words, Brook’s midsection is going to be vulnerable to Golovkin’s punches on the night no matter how heavy he comes in for this fight. Brook can rehydrate into the 190s if he wants, but his ability to take Golovkin’s perfectly placed shots to the body won’t have improved.
If Golovkin is going to throw a lot of liver shots in this fight, then being heavier will not help him. Being heavier will possibly help Brook throw with a tad bit more power in this fight, but not by much. Adding a bunch of useless doesn’t result in you becoming a bigger puncher like a natural middleweight. A fighter that is natural for the 160lb division has the frame, the tendons and the body structure to throw with more power than someone that has recently packed on a lot of muscle weight. Adding a lot of muscle just makes you look good, but it doesn’t result in you being able to throw with more power. Brook’s heart is going to have to pump blood to the added muscle weight that he puts on for this fight. Boxing is a cardio sport, and you’ve got to focus on your heart conditioning if you want to be able to fight hard for more than three or four rounds. If Golovkin is still standing there throwing rockets after the 8th round, then what is Brook going to do if he’s dog tired from carrying around all that useless muscle weight? Brook can’t say to Golovkin, ‘Hey mate, I’m a little tired right now. Can you lesson up to half speed so that I can catch by breath?’ Golovkin will not slow down for an instant once Brook starts gasping for breath in the second half of the fight. Brook will then he faced to depend on his chin to take awful punishment from Golovkin. When it gets to that point, I just hope that Brook’s trainer Ingle has the white towel of surrender ready to throw into the ring to get the fight to be stopped to prevent his fighter from getting seriously hurt. Golovkin’s opponents usually don’t get stopped on their feet. It’s usually a situation where he poleaxes them with a head shot or lands a hard boy punch that sends them down on one knee in pain. I think that’s the more likely scenario for this fight.
Brook isn’t going to take too much heat for losing to Golovkin on September 10, because he’s moving up in weight from 147. Brook can literally be knocked out in round one in this fight, and he’s not going to get dumped on by the boxing world. Instead, Brook will be seen as a hero for stepping up two weight classes to take the fight against Triple G. The likely criticism for Brook will come later when he melts back down to welterweight and defends his IBF title – and loses to – Errol Spence Jr. At that point, Brook will be royally dumped on by fans and the media. However, Brook can always use the excuse of being drained from having come down from his fight against Golovkin at middleweight to make weight at 147 for the Spence fight.