By Scott Gilfoid: Trainer Kenny Porter says IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook never had any intentions of giving former IBF 147lb champion Shawn Porter a rematch after he beat him by a 12 round majority decision on August 16, 2014 at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
Kenny notes that after Porter the fight, he was removed from the International Boxing Federation’s top 25. He didn’t understand how Porter could be removed from the IBF’s rankings. Kenny points out that Kevin Bizier was kept in the IBF’s top 15 rankings after he lost to Jo Jo Dan, and was able to get a mandatory title shot against Brook in 2016.
Why was Bizier allowed to remain in the IBF’s rankings after his loss to Dan? Kenny doesn’t understand the reasons behind the IBF allowing Bizier a second shot, but not Porter. Only the IBF knows why they dropped Porter from the rankings and not Bizier after his loss. It doesn’t make sense to me. How do you drop a fighter from the rankings after he loses a controversial decision to Brook? It’s mind-boggling to me. The IBF drops a talented fighter like Porter, and then keeps Bizier ranked high after his loss to Jo Jo Dan.
Using nonstop holding all night long, Brook won a controversial decision over Porter by the scores 116-112, 117-111 and 114-114. The judges that gave the win to Brook were Adalaide Byrd and Max Deluca. I scored the fight for Porter 10 rounds to 2. I couldn’t give Brook more than two rounds because he was holding so much, and getting hit with big shots. The referee working the fight did nothing to stop Brook from grabbing Porter repeatedly when he could forward looking to work on the inside. It was sad to watch all the holding being done by Brook. He’d talked up a storm before the fight about how he was going to beat Porter by fighting. But when it came to the actual fight, Brook elected to grab Porter in a clinch over and over again in each round. I guess Brook didn’t feel he could win without constant holding.
“Kell Brook had no intentions of ever re-matching Shawn Porter,” said Kenny Porter to the boxing media. “There were never any intentions [of Kell Brook fighting Porter again]. You never heard of a Kell Brook interview where he mentioned his name. He never mentioned the guy he won the IBF title from. Jo Jo Dan, Kevin Bizier, they fought for the right to fight Kell Brook, and Jo Jo won. Jo Jo fights Kell and gets knocked out. Later on, Bizier fights Fredrick Lawson for the right to fight Kell Brook. How is it he gets another shot and we don’t get another shot, and he fights him and gets knocked out again. Then there’s also Frankie Gavin [that Brook fought].”
I totally agree with you, Mr. Kenny. I think it’s obvious why Brook never fought Porter again, because he got lucky the first time and would have lost in the rematch. Porter learned how to deal with clinchers after the Brook fight, and he would have defeated his attempts at nonstop clinching if he had fought him in a rematch. Brook has taken on nothing but soft welterweights since his controversial win over Porter. The only good fighter that Brook has faced was middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, and that was a payday fight where Brook had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Brook likes to point out that he’s unbeaten at welterweight, which is true, but what he doesn’t say is that he’s been well matched during his 13-year pro career in terms of being fed weak welterweight competition other than his one fight against Shawn Porter.
Look at the guys that Brook has faced at welterweight during the last seven years of his career:
Kevin Bizier
Frankie Gavin
Ionut Dan Ion
Shawn Porter
Alvaro Robles
Vyacheslav Senchenko
Carson Luis
Luis Galarza
Hector David Saldivia
Matthew Hatton
Rafal Jackiewicz
Lovemore N’dou
Philip Kotey
Michael Jennings
These are all the welterweights that Brook has fought since 2010, and there’s only one good one out of the entire bunch and that’s Porter, who I thought was robbed badly in his fight against Brook in 2014. I thought Brook got away with a ton of holding in that fight that should have resulted him being disqualified or penalized multiple times.
Heavyweight Wladimir Klitschko has a reputation for holding, but I’ve never seen him hold the way that Brook did against Porter. It was disappointing that the referee didn’t address the excessive holding because it was clear that Brook was gaming the system in that fight by using holding to keep Porter from throwing punches.
When a fighter is using an illegal tactic like excessive holding, the referee is supposed to take control of the fight by first warning that fighter and then moving on to more strict forms to enforce the rules of boxing. It’s a credit to Porter that he didn’t get in the gutter with Brook to start fouling him with rabbit shots and low blows to get him to stop holding. It would have been interesting to see if the referee took points off for those fouls.
It would have looked strange if Porter had points taken off for fouling but not Brook for his excessive holding, which is considered illegal as well. Fighters are not supposed to hold nonstop the way Brook was allowed to against Porter, and yet nothing was done about it. Brook didn’t win that fight. He gamed the system by holding and got away with it. Even with the holding, I still had Porter easily winning the fight. I thought the scoring was a joke that night. With everything that Porter was up against, there was no way he was going to win that fight.
Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn has reportedly made an offer to IBF mandatory challenger Errol Spence Jr. for a fight. If the two fighters are unable to agree to terms, it will go to a purse bid in February. It’s unknown whether Brook will vacate his IBF title or not. Amir Khan has said that he wants Brook to defend his IBF title against Errol Spence, and that he would then possibly fight the winner of that fight or the winner of the Danny Garcia vs. Keith Thurman fight. Even if Brook loses to Spence, he will still likely get the Khan fight in the future. Khan isn’t going to ignore a big payday fight against Brook forever. He’ll eventually give him the fight.
It would be in Brook’s best interest to find some way to beat Spence so that he can have his IBF title still in his possession when he faces Khan. A lot of boxing fans want to see that fight happen. However, Brook isn’t going to beat Spence by coming up with an illegal gimmick like excessive holding.
It’s going to take more than that for him to beat Spence. He and his team are wise to Brook’s tricks now. If Brook is going to win, he’s going to need to do it the old fashioned way by actually fighting Spence rather than coming up with a ploy like excessive holding and hoping the referee allows him to get away with it like with his fight against Porter.
Spence is going to be looking to take Brook’s head off. If Brook is going to run around the ring like he did against Gennady Golovkin, then Spence will cut off the ring and force him to fight. It would be better for Brook if he saved his energy and just fights Spence.
At least by fighting, Brook can go out like a warrior rather than looking bad while running from the heat of the battle. We’ll see what happens. I still have doubts that Brook will take the fight with Spence. I still believe Brook vacates and moves up to 154 to wait on a fight against one of the big names from the 147lb division.