By Scott Gilfoid: It appears that Kell Brook (36-1, 25 KOs) will not be moving back down to the welterweight division to defend his IBF 147lb title against his mandatory challenger Errol Spence Jr. (21-0, 18 KOs).
Brook is saying he only plans on moving back down to the welterweight division to fight a big name like Amir Khan, because it takes too much out of him to have to melt down in weight. Brook walks around in the low 170s in between fights. In that respect, Brook is the same size as Spence. However, Brook doesn’t like to have to put his body through the ordeal to get down to 147 the way that Spence does without complaints.
I can’t say I’m all that surprised that Brook won’t be fighting Spence. I never thought he would to begin with. Spence is just too TALENTED for a limited fighter like Brook to beat him, and I think it would badly for the British fighter. Spence would walk Brook down, nail him with shots each time he caught up to him, and overpower him on the inside when he tries to clinch for survival.
Spence would be Gennady Golovkin part 2 with the way that he would walk Brook down, batter him, and overwhelm him with power shots to the head and body. Yeah, I think Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle would pick up the white towel of surrender and throw it into the ring to save Brook from getting smashed by Spence. By this point, I think it’s a habit for Ingle if Brook starts getting the worst of it. The towel would find it’s way to Ingle’s hand almost by instinct and thrown into the ring to keep Spence from finishing Brook off.
Brook might end up waiting an awful long time for Khan to fight him, because it doesn’t appear that he’s interested in fighting Brook anytime soon. Khan could change his mind, but I doubt it. Brook is going to need to do something while waiting for the Khan fight. If Brook fights anyone good at 154, he’s going to get smashed in my opinion.
Heck, even if Brook fights former WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith, I still see him getting blown out. Of course, I don’t think Brook would take that fight, because it would be too risky. If all Brook is going to do is stay in a holding pattern until he gets a big name to fight him, then I doubt that he’ll be agreeable to fight anyone with a shred of talent.
“I really believe for the right fight I will get back down to welterweight again,” said Brook to skysports.com. “That is where the big fights are at the moment – and it has to be one that excites me because other than that, it takes too much out of me. If Amir Khan finally stepped up and if the fight is nailed and all signed, that’s when you’ll see me back at 147,” said Brook.
Well, Brook might as well vacate his IBF welterweight title now if all he’s going to do is go back down to 147 for a fight against Khan. Brook is basically saying he’s not going to fight Errol Spence by saying that he’ll only come down to 147 for the Khan fight.
Obviously, Brook would move back down to 147 if he could get a fight against the likes of Danny Garcia, Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Manny Pacquiao.
I don’t think Brook would go back down to 147 for Spence, Shawn Porter or Keith Thurman. Those guys bring too much danger for Brook, and he would have a high chance of losing to all three of them no matter how much running or holding he did. Brook beat Porter by a narrow 12 round decision two years ago in 2014, but he had to hold all night long on the inside to keep Porter from braining him.
Porter has since learned how to beat clinchers like Brook, so he would need to come up with another game plan if he wanted to beat Porter in a rematch Clinching wouldn’t work the second time around. Of course, I don’t think Brook is ever going to fight a dangerous guy like Porter again, so it’s neither here nor there what he would do to try and beat him a second time around.
“It’s come ’round full circle now. My status is higher than his when it comes to boxing so, if he wants it, he’s going to have to step up to the plate,” said Brook.
I don’t have any idea how Brook’s status was increased by his 5th round knockout loss to Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. As far as I’m concerned, all I saw was a bunch of running by Brook in the Golovkin fight. Brook landed a handful of punches in the 2nd round, but then got back on his bike once Golovkin nailed him with a right to the head that almost decapitated him in the same round. In the 3rd, the referee blew a knockdown call by failing to score a knockdown when Golovkin bowled Brook over with a left hook to the head. Seeing that knockdown in slow motion, it was clearly a punch that caused Brook to go down.
Golovkin was really up against it in fighting with a referee blowing calls, and the judges giving Brook rounds that he clearly didn’t deserve in my opinion. How on earth could the judge give Brook the 1st round when he was staggered badly by a left hand from Golovkin? That’s what we saw. The scoring was a joke. Brook did nothing but run in the fight other than the 2nd round. By the 3rd round, it was clear that Brook had very little time left. Even if you ignore the blown knockdown call by the referee, Brook was in the panic mode.
Golovkin had turned up the heat with his offense, and Brook was running like no tomorrow. Brook looked like he had lost his senses entirely. He had the look of panic on his face that you get in battle when someone has gone panicky. Golovkin was totally calm, nodding his head, as if to say, ‘Good job, Brook, now keep fighting and stop running.’ Brook was having none of it though. He stayed on his bike, and continued to run around the ring in the panic mode.
By the 5th round, Brook dropped his gloves after getting hit hard to the body by Golovkin. Brook then went into full offensive shutdown. From that point on, Brook stopped throwing punches entirely, and forced his trainer Ingle to throw in the white towel of surrender. Brook used the ropes as a cane by holding onto them with one hand and inching along like an old man while taking punishment with every step. It was sad to see. Ingle had no choice but to throw the towel in. So basically, I do not see how Brook came out ahead in the fight against Golovkin. Where is there victory in a defeat like that, I ask? I do not see Brook being more popular because he took a beating, stopped fighting, causing the fight to be halted.
If Brook wanted to show bravery, he would stop yapping about Khan and fight Spence. Brook has got to fight someone while waiting for the Khan fight. It would be better for Brook to show courage by taking on Spence than to stultify his career by going back to fighting weaker opponents like he’d been doing in the past.
The reason why Brook never got the big fights up to now is because his promoters were too busy matching him against soft opposition. I mean, look at the guys that Brook had been facing before he fought Golovkin: Jo Jo Dan, Kevin Bizier, Frankie Gavin, Alvaro Robles, Vyacheslav Senchenko, Carson Jones, Hector Saldivia, Matthew Hatton, Luis Galarza, Rafael Jackiewicz, Lovemore N’dou, Michael Jennings, Philip Kotey and Krzsztof Bienias. The only good opponent that Brook fought in his entire 12-year career is Shawn Porter, and he gamed the fight by clinching him nonstop for 12 rounds. I thought Brook should have been disqualified for the nonstop clinching of Porter. I also thought Brook lost that fight even with the clinching. It was sad scoring.
It would be nice if Brook were to do the brave thing by fighting Spence. At least by doing that, he could show the boxing world that he’s willing to fight the best 147lb fighters rather than the mediocre fighters.