By Scott Gilfoid: Kell Brook (36-1, 25 KOs) gave it his best shot last Saturday night against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs), but at the end of the night after five rounds, Brook’s right eye socket was broken from the force of one of the Kazakhstan fighter’s punches, causing the fight to be halted. However, the loss hasn’t dissuaded Brook from holding out hope that a rematch could take place at some point down the road in the future.
While you can’t rule out a second fight taking place between Golovkin and Brook at some point in the distant future, it’s not likely to occur. Brook and Golovkin will both need to keep winning for a second fight to be worthwhile for the bpxing public to see. Given the results of their fight last Saturday, I don’t know if a second fight between Golovkin and Brook would interest the fans.
”Great fight Gennady much respect to you and good luck, maybe we’ll dance again one day who knows 👊🏼” said Brook to Golovkin via his social media site.
Brook will need to find some punching power and more aggressiveness for him to find success at 154 so that he can make a case for him facing Golovkin again. The way I see it, Brook is going to take loss after loss at 154, and wind up with his tail between his legs heading back down to 147. That’s the way I see it going. I cannot for the life of me see Brook doing well in the junior middleweight division against all the huge punchers in that weight class.
There are guys at 154 that are bigger, faster and more athletic than Brook. Look at the Charlo brothers, Demetrius Andrade, Julian Williams and Erislandy Lara. Those highly skilled fighters with size, power and speed. Liam Smith isn’t rated as highly as those guys are by boxing fans, but he’s still a huge puncher.
I can’t see Brook beating him. But for Brook and Golovkin to meet again in the future, it’s going to require that Brook win his fights long enough to create enough interest for a second fight between them. Believe me; if Brook cleans out the 154lb division, the fans will be pressuring him and Golovkin to fight each other a second time. It would be big news for them to fight a second time under those kinds of conditions, but it’s going to take a lot of wins for Brook over major talents at 154 for that to happen.
Brook’s corner had to stop the fight during the 5th round, as Golovkin was hitting him at will without nothing slowing him down. Brook was no longer throwing punches, and he was just trying to make Golovkin miss while holding out his arms in a feeble attempt to show him and the fans that he wasn’t bothered by the shots. Brook may not have been, but it was only a matter of time he was going to be hurt badly enough to be sent down for the count. No matter how much Brook wanted to bluff, he was going to going to get taken apart if his trainer Dominic Ingle hadn’t saved him from his fate. By throwing in the towel, Ingle protected his fighters’ career.
Brook could wind up getting a fight against Saul Canelo Alvarez or Liam Smith in 2017. Brook has an excellent chance of fighting one or both of those guys in 2017. It’s hard to predict the future, but you must assume that Brook will have a very hard time beating Smith and/or Canelo. They’re both bigger punchers Brook, and they wouldn’t miss with their punches all night long for Brook to beat them by a decision. Enough of their shots would get through to give Brook all kinds of problems.
If Brook loses a couple more times, it’s highly doubtful that Golovkin’s management would want anything to do with him. Brook would have two or three defeats on his resume by that point, and there would be nothing to distinguish him. Brook and his promoter Eddie Hearn couldn’t point out that Ring Magazine has them rated as the No.1 fighter in the 154lb division. One of the things Hearn was saying in the buildup to the Golovkin vs. Brook fight was that Ring had him as the No.1 welterweight in the division. That clearly was a subjective opinion from the organization, because Brook would have had his hands full against the likes of Errol Spence Jr., Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia, Tim Bradley, Jessie Vargas and even in a rematch against Shawn Porter.
Brook had his moments in the Golovkin fight in landing some shots, but it was mostly Golovkin who was doing the damage in the fight. The main difference is that Golovkin wasn’t being cheered after he would land a big head or body shot. That’s what made the fight look like it was a closer affair than it really was. With the crowd cheering for Brook’s occasional weaker punches landing, it gave the boxing fans – and perhaps the judges – the belief that the fight was a competitive one. It wasn’t competitive after the 2nd round. That was the only round where Brook did enough to win it. In rounds one, three, four and five, Brook was getting hammered and he was running, holding and trying not to get hit. Brook wasn’t fighting hard enough to win the rounds due to his survival oriented fighting style.
If Brook couldn’t handle the punching power of Golovkin, then I certainly don’t think he’s going to be able to handle the big power shots from guys at 154 like Liam Smith, Julian Williams, Andrade, Lara and the Charlo brothers. Those guys have the frames and the natural power that goes with those frames to put a hurting on Brook. I hate to say it, but I think Brook doesn’t have the power to compete at 154 and 160. Yes, Brook has the body size in terms of muscle to fight in those divisions, but he doesn’t have the frame.
Brook just looks like a guy with a small frame that he put a lot of muscle on to get up to 154 and 160. He’s not a naturally big guy with the skeletal and ligaments to punch with the kind of power that you see from natural junior middleweights and middleweights. I see most of those guys as true middleweights, not junior middleweights. Liam Smith and Miguel Cotto both look like real 154lb fighters. The other guys, Andrade, the Charlo brothers, Canelo, Williams and Lara, are middleweights in my opinion.