By Scott Gilfoid: Boxing fans essentially see Kell Brook as the token lamb for IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) to slaughter on September 10 in their UK fight at the O2 Arena in London. Brook doesn’t see it that way though. He feels that he’s going to beat Golovkin, and show the critics how wrong they are. Brook also thinks this fight will show the fans that h doesn’t care about taking on dangerous opponents. He’ll do it anyway.
Like with anything, people judge a person on what they’ve done in the past. If they failed at something or if they didn’t look impressive, then they’re going to predict failure for that person. All we know from watching Brook’s past fights is that he’s only fought one good opponent in his entire career in Shawn Porter in 2014, and that he was forced to spoil all night long by holding him.
I counted over 10 clinches per round initiated by Brook in that fight. It’s very hard to clinch times without boring the audiences and having the referee learn on you. Brook got away with it, but without the clinching, I think Brook would have lost to Porter.
“I have been wanting the massive fights,’ Brook said via the dailymail. ”This is my chance to show the critics. I’ve always wanted to be tested and that is what will happen in this fight. It also shows that I don’t give a s*** – I want to fight the best and I fear no man. This fight proves that.”
I don’t think Brook is going to be showing the critics anything on the night other than the fact that they were right about him being hopelessly over-matched by the talented Golovkin. The critics have Brook pegged as the loser in this fight, and I totally agree. I think Brook is going to get launched into oblivion in round one, and there’s going to be a lot of long faces from the fans in the audience. I think the first reaction will be shock at seeing Brook getting knocked out in the 1st round by Golovkin, but then shock will change to misery within an instant. I think Brook’s fans believe that he has a real chance of winning this fight. That’s why it’s going to be a bitter pill for them to swallow when things turn out badly for Brook with him getting sparked out straightaway by Golovkin.
I’d like to think that Golovkin will let Brook hang around for five to six rounds so that he can toy with him before finishing him off, but in this case, I think the pro-Brook crowd is going to cause Golovkin’s basic instincts to kick in without him having any control of over them. At that point, Golovkin will be like a machine and will take Brook out immediately. It’ll be brutal and final the way Golovkin does it. There won’t be any second guessing about the knockout, believe me.
Well, Brook hasn’t exactly been chomping at the bit to fight unbeaten #2 IBF Errol Spence Jr (20-0, 17 KOs), has he? Brook hasn’t exactly been breaking down the doors of Keith Thurman to try and get a fight against him, has he? I mean, it’s easy for Brook to brag about him taking a big risk by fighting Triple G on September 10, but the reality of the situation is that Brook is getting such a huge payday in this fight that it’s a risk well worth it. In other words, it’s a no lose situation for Brook.
Brook is said to be getting as much as $6.5 million for the fight against Golovkin depending on the pay-per-view buys generated from Sky Box Office. Even if Brook only makes $4 million, that’s a ton of sweet cash that he didn’t have before this fight. It doesn’t matter if Brook gets whipped by Golovkin in this fight, because the cash he’s going to get is going to help him cry all the way to the bank the day after the fight.
Only thing Brook needs to do is not get beaten too badly, and to put up a decent fight in the early rounds before Golovkin gets serious with him. Once Golovkin gets serious in there, it’s going to be over quickly. I can’t see Brook landing out a round where Golovkin has decided to take him out. If Golovkin decides he wants to knock Brook senseless in the 5th, then you can bet that is the round that he’ll be going. All it will take is one big shot from Golovkin to stagger Brook, and from there, it’ll take one or two more shots to poleaxe him.
“Now I could probably have a few cakes if I wanted but really, it’s just rubbish carbs,” said Brook. “I want to be eating clean, eating things that mend my body with nutritional value.”
I don’t know why Brook is still thinking about food. The guy has bloated up to 176lbs. Hasn’t he eaten enough? I get the impression that he’s been denying himself adequate nutrition all these years in draining down to 147 for each fight rather than fighting in his natural weight class at middleweight or super middleweight, and he’s now just eating like crazy now that he’s got the chance to. It’s got to be bad for your body to artificially fight in a weight class that is not right for your natural weight.
Still, Brook needs to back away from the dinner table and realize that he’s got a heck of a lot of weight to take off from 176 to get down to 160. That’s not going to be easy, believe me. Yeah, Brook now has thirteen pounds to play with due to him not having to make weight at 147, but he’s really gone overboard if you ask me. If Brook keeps his weight at 176, then it means he’s going to need to lose 16 pounds of water weight the week of the fight, and that’s not going to be easy.
I think Brook will do it, but he might look like a zombie the night of the fight. What we don’t want is Brook bellyaching about the weight after the fight when he gets knocked out by Golovkin. If Brook starts yapping about him losing because he had to drain 16 pounds of water weight to get down to 160, I don’t think he’s going to get a lot of sympathy from the boxing public. They’re going to look at him like someone that can own up to the fact that he got smashed to bits by Golovkin and is now dreaming up excuses so that he doesn’t have to give the Kazakhstan fighter credit for having whipped him fair and square.