By Patrick McHugh: Kell Brook (36-0, 25 KOs) believes he’s on the verge of pulling off one of the biggest upsets in boxing history when he meets unbeaten top pound-for-pound middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) this Saturday night at the O2 Arena in London, England. Brook is considered a long shot to win the fight, but he believes that he will win.
Brook has his mind made up that he’ll get the victory one way or another. He’s not ruling out scoring a knockout, but he understands that it’s going to hard for him to do that. Brook is mostly hoping to get a decision if possible by being clever inside the ring with the 34-year-old “Triple G” on Saturday in their fight on HBO World Championship Boxing and Sky Box Office pay-per-view.
This will be the 30-year-old Brook’s first huge mega-fight of his 12-year pro career, and he’s hoping that it’ll be just the start of many more huge events for him. It remains to be seen whether the Golovkin fight will lead to bigger ones for the British fighter Brook. It will of course depend largely on how he does against GGG. If Brook is able to beat Golovkin or at the minimum be competitive in losing, then he’ll be able to use the fight to get bigger ones against guys like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Amir Khan, Danny Garcia, Manny Pacquiao, Keith Thurman and Terence Crawford.
There are only a small handful of big fights that Brook could be involved with if he does well against Golovkin, and his potential could be limited if he gets beaten anywhere along the way. Brook must keep winning for him to progress from fight to fight, and he must look good. Brook can’t spoil like he did against Shawn Porter in 2014 with him holding for 12 rounds trying to nick an ugly decision. Brook must be entertaining and win in the traditional sense rather than using a punch and grab strategy to squeak out an ugly win.
“I’m drawing energy from these people and this is what I want to do. This is it. This feeling that I’m feeling now is amazing. Every single day I am a step closer to doing something very special,” said Brook to skysports.com. . “I can’t go back to those fights I had before – they have to be mega-fights. The attention we’ve had everywhere I have gone is so exciting and that buzzes me up and makes me just want to set off running.
The energy that Brook gets from the crowd can be a double sward for him, as it could work against him if he tries to do too much against Golovkin on Saturday night. Above all, Brook has to be smart inside the ring at all times in this fight, because if he tries to slug with Golovkin, he’ll likely run into something big and get taken out quickly.
All it takes is one big punch from Golovkin to stun Brook. Once he’s hurt, Brook will literally be at the mercy of GGG. Golovkin is a great finisher when he’s got an opponent staggering around the ring. Additionally, Brook cannot afford to have his beak busted up badly like it was against Carson Jones in their first fight in 2012. Jones isn’t a big puncher, but he was still able to break Brook’s prominent nose with a hard right hand send blood everywhere.
Brook wasn’t the same after he had his nose busted it up. If Golovkin is able to land one of his bone-crunching left hooks or right hands on Brook’s nose on Saturday night, we could see a similar situation with the Special K’s being bloodied and perhaps knocked askew. Jones wasn’t able to capitalize on Brook being hurt badly in the 12th round of their fight in 2012. But if Golovkin gets Brook in a similar situation, there won’t be anything or anyone to save him from his fate. Brook will be quickly taken out in a neat fashion. Jones probably would have knocked Brook out in their 2012 fight if the referee hadn’t taken a brief timeout in the action to admonish Jones for something. The timeout came at a critical point in the 12th round when Brook was out on his feet and ready to be knocked out in the last seconds of the fight.
“These are my people, these are my fans,” said Brook about the fans that showed up today to see him workout. “Already the tools are sharp and I’m ready to get in and rip those titles away. I have been sparring with big guys for this. I’ve been keeping the extra strength and the speed is there as well. I can’t wait to test it out – the new and improved me at 160 weight.”
We saw some footage of Brook sparring with WBO 154lb champion Liam Smith on Youtube this week. Brook didn’t look that good. Smith was throwing the harder shots with more snap on his punches, and he looked like the better fighter. Perhaps it was intentional on Brook’s part for him not to look powerful or explosive, because he did not look like he belonged at the weight. Smith is just a junior middleweight and not a middleweight like Golovkin. Smith doesn’t have Golovkin’s punching power, but Brook didn’t have even Smith’s type of power. If that holds to be true on Saturday night, then Brook is going to need to figure out another way to try and win the fight against Golovkin instead of slugging with him. Brook would need to use tactics to try and out-box Golovkin to get a decision win.
Brook needs to avoid getting too hyped up by the energy from the large crowd of 20,000 boxing fans that will be showing up at the O2 Arena on Saturday. The fans could cause Brook to do something stupid like getting involved in exchanges with Golovkin that could turn out to be disastrous for him. If Brook isn’t able to deal with even Liam Smith, then he’s going to be totally out-gunned by Triple G on Saturday.