Kell Brook pleased with response for Golovkin fight

By Boxing News - 08/21/2016 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: Kell Brook (36-0, 25 KOs) feels pretty good about the fan reaction that he’s been seeing for him moving up two divisions to face unbeaten IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) on September 10. Brook notes that there is a lot of interest in the Golovkin-Brook fight, and he feels that he had to make a drastic move to get attention from the boxing world.

Brook thinks that it’s no longer a big deal just to be a world champion. The fans want to see bigger things from the fighters than merely winning world titles.

“There is a buzz in the air for this fight – it’s a mega-fight. It’s ludicrous a guy is jumping up two divisions to face somebody no-one will fight. It’s got everything and that’s why everyone needs to tune in,” said Brook to the bbc.com about his fight against Golovkin.

Yeah, there’s a buzz in the air for the Golovkin vs. Brook fight, to be sure, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to turn out well for Brook. The fight can attract a ton of interest and it still won’t mean much for Brook if he ends up getting royally whipped by Golovkin and sent on his way. Brook can revel in the response from the boxing world right now in his fight against Triple G, but it won’t mean anything if he turns around and gets splattered on the canvas on September 10.

The money Brook will make from the pay-per-view sales from Sky Box Office might make him feel a little bit better, I guess, but I don’t think losing is a good long term plan for growth. The fans that pay to see Brook fight Golovkin and lose likely won’t be so willing to pay to see Brook fight in the future. In that respect, you can see this as a cash out fight for Brook. He’ll get a big payday in getting knocked out and then find himself having lost a lot of fans unless he wins or makes it close in losing.

The interest in the Golovkin vs. Brook fight is largely centered among the hardcore boxing fans and with Brook’s fans in the UK. With the casual fans in the U.S, it’s likely not creating a lot of interest. Why would it? Brook isn’t a household name in the U.S like Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Manny Pacquiao. As such, the interest in the Golovkin-Brook fight is squarely with the hardcore fans in the US and not with the casual fans. In other words, it might take more than Brook stepping up to fight a middleweight for him to get the kind of attention that he craves. He might need to face someone well known like Pacquiao to get the attention he wants/needs.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. is already retired, so there’s little chance that Brook will get a fight against him. The only way Mayweather comes out of retirement is if he wants to school Brook if he beats Golovkin. It would make Mayweather look even better if he defeats the guy that beat Golovkin. Of course, the chances of Brook beating Golovkin are pretty low, so the entire scenario of Mayweather coming back to fight him is pretty farfetched.

“When we only had one or two world champions, the reaction when you won a word title was, ‘Yes, [it’s] unbelievable for Britain.’ But now it’s more a case of, ‘Oh, someone else has won a world title,’ No-one is shocked anymore,” Brook said. “So now you have to do something outrageous to stand out,” said Brook.

Well, if Brook would beat some of the top fighters in the 147lb division to win titles, maybe the fans would be more impressed. I mean, I still can’t shake the vision of Brook clinching like made in his fight against former IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter in 2014. There’s a right way and a wrong way to win a world title. The way Brook did it by excessively clinching Porter all night long in an imitation of a octopus is clearly the wrong way to win a strap.

I’ve seen the Brook vs. Porter fight several times since that night, and I’m always bored out of my mind when I view it. I also can’t believe that Brook wasn’t penalized or disqualified for his excessive clinching in that fight, because he was grabbing Porter every chance he could get. It wasn’t even fighting. It was grabbing. If there was a gold medal handed out for the fighter that did the best grabbing, Brook would have won on the night with the medal draped around his neck.

I don’t think it’s like Brook sees it. If he had stuck it out at welterweight and fought Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia, Tim Bradley and Errol Spence Jr. and beaten all those guys, he’d be recognized big time. The problem is that Brook has been matched up against a lot of fodder opposition and/or guys with inflated rankings and not much talent during his 12-year pro career, so that’s limited his ability to win over boxing fans.

You’re not going to become a big star if you squeak by guys like Shawn Porter by clinching him all night long, and then turning around and fighting Frankie Gavin, Jo Jo Dan and Kevin Bizier. I can understand Brook fighting his mandatory challengers, but he should have never wasted his fighting Gavin and all the guys that he fought before the Porter fight. There’s far too much fluff on Brook’s resume, which has probably helped keep him from becoming the star that he wants to be. Believe me, Brook wouldn’t have to go to drastic steps in facing Golovkin if he’d been taking the right fights all along from early in his career by facing the best contenders in the 147lb division instead of the obscure guys he’s padded his resume fighting.