By Scott Gilfoid: Well, it looks like the three judges were a little off with their scoring for the Gennady Golovkin vs. Kell Brook fight last Saturday night, considering that CompuBox’s final punch stats don’t reflect what the judges were seeing in there. The judges had the Golovkin-Brook fight scored as follows: 39-37, 38-38 and 38-38. So basically we’ve got two judges scoring the fight dead even through four rounds and another judge giving the fight to Brook by three rounds to one score.
According to CompuBox, Golovkin out-landed Brook overall in the fight in connecting on 133 of 301 punches for a connect percentage of 44.2. Brook landed 85 of 261 shots for a connect percentage of 32.6. So despite the fact that Golovkin out-landed Brook by 48 more punches, the judges still had Brook either even or beating Golovkin.
This is so, so sad. That’s not all. Golovkin landed more punches in EVERY round of the fight. Golovkin not only landed more punches in every round, he landed more power punches. So, if Golovkin landing more punches and more power punches in the fight, then how could the judges scored the fight the way that did? Were the judges unconsciously influenced by the screaming that was done by the pro-Brook crowd? In case you hadn’t notice, the boxing fans were screaming each time Brook threw a shot in the fight. That screaming had to have had some kind of influence in the scoring of the fight, don’t you think? Fortunately for Golovkin, the fight didn’t go to the scorecards, as Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle threw the towel into the ring in round five to have the match stopped when things started looking bad for his fighter.
That’s the beauty about Golovkin having so much punching power. He doesn’t need judges. The judges could have scored every round to Brook for all he cared, because he had already decided coming into the fight that he was going to KO Brook, and that’s exactly what he did. Golovkin didn’t get a clinical knockout of Brook, but he “Broke him” to the point where Ingle had to do something to save his fighter.
If Ingle had waited for Golovkin to let nature take its course to finish the fight, we might have seen Brook take too many blows to the head. Brook did show a really good chin in the fight, but that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t getting hurt. Golovkin clearly had Brook’s right eye in bad shape, and who knows what he would have done to the rest of his head if he would have been able to continue to work him over with his big power shots.
I think what we learned from this fight are the following things:
– Kell Brook can’t punch at a middleweight level
– Brook is mostly defensive. He doesn’t throw enough punches
– Golovkin can’t be stopped by weak punches
– Defense doesn’t win fights against Golovkin. You need more than that
– Brook has problems taking body shots
– Brook’s stamina isn’t that good.
If Brook is going to move down to 154 like he’s talking about, then I think he’s going to need to figure out how he’s going to beat the middleweight-sized fighters in that division, because right now, I don’t see Brook having the legitimate size to beat the top guys in that division. If Brook was too small to beat the 5’10 ½” Golovkin, then he sure as heck isn’t going to do any better against the even taller guys like Erislandy Lara, Demetrius Andrade, Julian Williams and the Charlo brothers. Those are middleweights as far as I’m concerned. All of them rehydrates into the 170s, and they’re strong at that weight. Brook bulked up to the 170s for the Golovkin fight, but he wasn’t strong. Brook was punching like a welterweight while looking like a middleweight last Saturday night. I don’t imagine that Brook is going to find any power in moving down to 154. If anything, he’ll be even weaker than he was at middleweight. As such, Brook is going to be out-gunned by the stronger junior middleweights that are perched at the top of the 154lb division. Yeah, I think Brook can beat the bottom feeders in the 154lb division, at least some of them. But I don’t think Brook is going to beat the top dogs. I hate to say it, but I think it’s career over for Brook as a top guy unless he goes back down to 147. I think Brook will maybe get one of two big fights at 154 against the likes of Liam Smith, Canelo Alvarez or the Charlo brothers, but I see him losing all of those fights and from there, I think his career will wither on the vine unless he can go back down to welterweight.
Brook needs to persuade Amir Khan in giving him a fight, because I think both of these guys are heading for the last chance saloon in a real hurry.