By Scott Gilfoid: Despite IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin looking quite ill for the last two days, his trainer Abel Sanchez dismisses the idea that his fighter Triple G is sick ahead of his big fight this Saturday night against Kell Brook at the O2 Arena in London, England.
When asked about whether Golovkin was in ill health, Sanchez denied it, saying that his fighter left early from the press conference on Thursday due to him wanting to let Brook have the moment for himself. However, there’s no mistaking that Golovkin does not look good physically around the eyes and his face looks gaunt.
Further, Golovkin showed little energy at today’s weigh-in for the Brook fight in London. The only energy Golovkin showed was when he gave the boxing crowd a weak smile and then shook Brook’s hand before walking off the stage. Golovkin looked quite ill.
“I think he’s just giving Kell his props and his dues here,” said Sanchez to Sky Sports News in explaining why Golovkin looked ill today and yesterday. “It’s the local guy [Brook], let him soak it all in and stay out of the way for him.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8KloPV9IpU
When asked if the moment is getting to Golovkin, Sanchez said, “Absolutely not. He’s a fighter with over 350 amateur wins, and has fought around the world. He’s undefeated as a pro with 22 consecutive knockouts in a row. There’s nothing going to faze him. It’s just giving Kell his moment. It’s a big moment for Kell, and I think he should take it all in. He’s just looking forward to landing the first shot and going to work. Kell looked very good today. Kell looked in great physical shape, but he’s going in against the best middleweight in the world. If it was against any other middleweight, I’d give him a 50-50 chance, but against this kid, it’s going to be very difficult tomorrow,” said Sanchez.
So there it is. Sanchez is denying that Golovkin is sick, and he’s not even addressing the issue by pointing out that he does not look well. The fact that Sanchez isn’t even willing to comment on Golovkin not looking in peak health has my spider senses tingling. Is Sanchez hiding something by not wanting to comment on the obvious about Golovkin being possibly ill? It doesn’t matter though, because it’s painfully obvious that something is up with Golovkin’s health; whether it’s him being weight drained or ill with a virus of some sort is unknown. What is known is he’s not looking good right now.
Kell Brook says he spotted fear in the eyes of unbeaten middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin during their face-off at their weigh-in today in London, England. Brook says that Golovkin is worried because he knows he’s in for a real battle this Saturday in their match televised by Sky Box Office pay-per-view and HBO World Championship Boxing.
Brook, 30, seemed to be working real hard during the stare down with Golovkin to get into his head. I think is desperate and trying to use any trick in the book to win the fight on Saturday night. In this case, it looks like Brook was trying to intimidate GGG by staring him down in a menacing manner. It’s an old trick that fighters use when they’re not confident of their own skills to do it inside the ring. So instead of trusting their own ability to win the fight based on being the better fighter, they try and unnerve their opponents by giving them mean looks or trash talking them.
For his part, Golovkin looked relaxed during the face off, staring back at Brook like a great white shark with emotionless eyes. Golovkin’s face was totally expressionless. If anything, I read boredom on his face. Golovkin saw his prey in front of him that he plans on tearing apart, but he knew he couldn’t start chewing him apart right there on the sport today, so he just looked at Brook with blank eyes.
Tomorrow night, you can expect the black part of Golovkin’s shark-like eyes to roll over as he tears into Brook from the 1st round. If Brook is going to have a chance of winning this fight, he’s going to need to hope that Golovkin will be ill and not feeling at 100% for the fight, because he’s not going to win the match if Triple G is at his best.
“I looked into his eyes and I could see fear. He knows he’s in a real fight on Saturday night and it can’t come quick enough,” Brook said to Skysports.com. “I just feel he’s on edge and uncomfortable. He knows it’s my time and he can see in my eyes that I want to shock the world. I’m a natural at this weight and I can’t wait to show the world what I can do.”
Nah, I don’t buy into all that fear business that Brook is blabbering about. Golovkin isn’t afraid of a pumped up welterweight like Brook, especially after watching him get pummeled recently during a sparring session by WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith. Brook is WAY over-matched in this fight against Golovkin. We’re not talking about a major talent with Brook. He’s perhaps the No.5 best welterweight division. He barely beat Shawn Porter in their fight in 2014. Brook had to use nonstop clinching to win the fight, and the referee failed to take points off for his holding. I had Brook losing the fight, and it wasn’t close in my view. I had it Porter winning by a lopsided decision, because he was out-landing Brook and doing all the actual fighting in terms of boxing. Brook was doing some beautiful holding, but the last time I checked, you don’t get points for holding in the boxing sport. If this was wrestling, I still couldn’t give Brook points, because he was just stalling out the rounds. It was a giant stall in each round from Brook. We haven’t seen Brook fight the best welterweights, but based on his performance against Porter, I think he would lose badly to Errol Spence, Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman, Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr.
The only chance that Brook has of winning this fight in my opinion is if Golovkin is too ill to win. I must admit that Golovkin looked very, very ill today. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but he definitely looked sick. Something is up with him. I’ve seen fighters look sickly at weigh-ins before, but they usually don’t look like this the day before the weigh-in. Golovkin looked sick on Thursday. Even in the media days in August, Golovkin looked tired, irritable and worn around the eyes.
It’s unclear whether Golovkin has been getting enough sleep or if he’s been dealing with some kind of cold. Whatever it is, he’s been looking worn out for a while now. In hindsight, Golovkin should have let his trainer Abel Sanchez do all the talking for him while he showed up for 20 minutes for each media day and then took off so he could rest up for the fight. It’s pretty strenuous to be getting grilled with the same questions over and over again by the boxing media.
The Golovkin-Brook fight will be taking place in front of a sold out O2 Arena in London, England. Many of the 20,000 fan that are expected to show up for the fight will be firmly on the side of Brook, and you can imagine they’ll be making a lot of noise in support of him.
“It’s written for me to go out there and do this; It’s my time to shine. It’s in the stars for me to win this fight and I can’t wait to take those belts home,” said Brook.
Unless Golovkin is still sick looking on Saturday night, I can’t see Brook having any chance in this fight of causing an upset. Golovkin would have to be REALLY sick for Brook to be able to win this fight from the way I see it. Even if Golovkin is only at 60 percent capacity, he still batters and knocks out Brook. Golovkin is just a naturally tremendous puncher. If he’s sick, I think that would drop his power down to the level of someone like Liam Smith. Believe me, if Golovkin’s punching power is reduced to the level of Liam Smith, it would be more than enough for him to take Brook out within four rounds. Smith was really nailing Brook during their sparring session, and he was barely even throwing any punches.
Smith was clearly helping Brook by playing the role of a passive sparring partner and not really attacking him the way that Golovkin will be tomorrow night. Smith was still able to land some huge shots. One right hand in particular froze Brook to his boots. It was a rocket of a fight hand that had Brook standing there looking like he was stunned. This was with 16oz gloves on and with head gear. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like for Brook on Saturday night, even against an ill Golovkin.