By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBO junior middleweight champion Liam “Beefy” Smith says he would be open to a fight against the recently beaten welterweight Kell Brook if the money is right for a fight against him. Smith, 28, lost his title last Saturday night in getting stopped in the 9th round by Saul
“Canelo” Alvarez at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Smith was dropped three times in the fight, and really did nothing to distinguish himself other than fighting hard in the 4th. The rest of the fight saw Smith putting pressure on Canelo in a sporadic manner rather than consistent pressure. Even though Canelo looked flawed, beatable and limited, Smith’s uneven pressure and low work rate sunk any chances he had in winning the contest.
Besides that, Smith didn’t have the power or the hand speed to make a fight of it. When you’re lacking in the speed and power departments, then you need to use a high work rate to win. Smith wasn’t willing or able to fight like that. It’s too bad really, because if he had followed the Antonio Margarito style of fighting in throwing nonstop punches, he might have given Canelo a lot of problems.
“I have just fought Canelo Alvarez so I’m not going to say no to fighting Kell Brook,” Smith said to the mirror.co.uk. “If the money’s right, let’s do it. We’ll sit there and try and find out what best suits us. We’re not going to pussyfoot around Kell Brook and wait for their team to make a decision.”
Yeah, I think Brook is probably not a high priority for Brook right now. Brook is more interested in fighting Saul Canelo Alvarez than he is in facing a guy that was just whipped by Alvarez. How do you sell a fight to the British boxing public between two guys that were just stopped? At least if Brook fought Canelo, he would be dealing with someone that just won his last fight. Seriously though, I don’t see Brook winding up as Canelo’s next opponent on December 10 unless Brook can make a miraculous recovery from his broken right eye socket. Brook is most likely going to need to wait until early 2017 before he can get a fight against Canelo if at all.
Smith suffered some cuts in his loss to Canelo that are going to need time to heal. I would imagine that Smith would be better off waiting until 2017 before getting back inside the ring to resume his career if he doesn’t want to wind up having all those cuts reopened immediately in 2016. Smith needs to heal and then come back against a winnable opponent.
Unfortunately for Smith, he may have to get back inside the ring soon if Canelo chooses to vacate his WBO title. If Smith wants to fight for the vacant World Boxing Organization 154lb title, he might need to fight this year for the belt. Smith would obviously jump at the chance of fighting #3 WBO Miguel Cotto for the vacant WBO title, but I don’t think that fight is going to happen. It’ll be up to the WBO to decide who they want to compete for their belt. Smith just lost, so he might not even be in play for a fight for the WBO belt.
I think Brook has a heck of a lot more options available to him than Smith right now, because Brook fought a better fight against Golovkin than Smith did against Canelo. At least with Brook, he won some rounds against Golovkin, albeit in a controversial manner in the eyes of many boxing fans. One judge had Brook up three rounds to one against Golovkin at the time of the stoppage. The other two had it even. A lot of fans saw it as three to one in favor of Golovkin. It’d like to know how the judges were all scoring the 5th round at the time of the stoppage. It would be a laugh if they all had Brook winning the 5th as well. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised, because believe it or not, two of the judges had Brook winning the 1st round despite him being stunned and staggered by Golovkin.
Normally when a fighter is badly hurt like Brook was in round one, they lose that round, but not in this case. That’s why I would have loved to have seen the scoring of the 5th round by the judges if Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle hadn’t thrown in the towel. It would have a serious joke if the judges had scored the 5th for Brook as well as the 1st.
Brook said today that he’s still thinking about possibly going back down to 147 to defend his International Boxing Federation title. Brook isn’t sure though. But if he decides to keep his IBf title, it would be big news in the boxing world, being that he would need to defend it against Errol Spence Jr. (21-0, 18 KOs). This is the guy that is seen as the new star in the welterweight division. If Brook loses to him too with Ingle tossing in the towel, there would be no excuses that would work with the public. You can blame your defeat on an injured eye once, but you can’t make a career out of blaming losses on injuries. The public sees through the excuses. If Brook lost to Spence, he would to own his loss otherwise the fans would see him potentially as someone that can’t admit when he’s been beaten.