By Jeff Aranow: 2012 U.S Olympian Errol Spence Jr. (21-0, 18 KOs) has agreed to fight IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (36-1, 25 KOs) in the UK in his hometown of Sheffield on May 27. Agreeing to fight Brook in his hometown could turn out to be big mistake for Spence and his promoters if the fight goes the distance.
Spence and his promoters might feel confident that judges won’t get a chance to score the fight due to him possibly knocking out Brook, who is coming off of a bad eye injury in his knockout loss to Gennady Golovkin last September. You have to admit that Spence is catching Brook at the perfect time in his career. Brook not only suffered an eye injury in the Golovkin fight, but he took a beating and had the fight halted by his trainer in the 5th round.
Brook’s trainer stopped the fight at the perfect time. If he had waited a little bit longer, Brook might have had his career shortened due to his eye injury. He was fighting with the injury from the 1st round, and it was getting worse as the rounds went by.
Spence is Brook’s mandatory challenger for his IBF title and the fight was ordered months ago by the International Boxing Federation. This wasn’t the match that Brook and his wily promoter Eddie Hearn wanted. They were hoping to lure one of the big names – Amir Khan, Manny Pacquiao, Keith Thurman, Miguel Cotto or Danny Garcia – to agree to fight him.
If one of them had said yes to the fight with Brook, then he very likely would have vacated his IBF title the next second unless the IBF allowed him to fight a unification match, which in that case would mean that Spence would have needed to cool his heels while waiting for the fight to take place
The initial date for the Brook-Spence fight was May 20, but Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn will reportedly be looking to change the date to May 27 for Sheffield, England, the hometown of the 30-year-old Brook.
There was a purse bid scheduled for Tuesday of this week for the Brook vs. Spence fight, but the bid was canceled on Monday with the news that Hearn had made a deal with Spence’s promoter. The original purse bid was scheduled last Tuesday, but Brook and Spence’s promoters agreed to move the purse bid to February 14 in order to have more time to try and negotiate the fight.
This was a good move because they were successful in negotiating the fight. Whether it would have been better off for Spence to have the fight go to a purse bid is the big question. It would depend on how much money his promoters could come up with to try and win the bid. But even if Team Spence did win the purse bid, the best place for the fight would still be in the UK, because it’s a much bigger fight over there than it would be in the U.S. Spence may someday become a big star in the U.S in the future, but for right now, he’s still a little known fighter with the casual boxing fans.
Depending on the outcome of the Brook-Spence fight, this could be the last time Brook fights in the 147lb division other than for big money fights. Brook could move up to 154 after the Spence fight, because he’s having a hard time making the weight limit at this point in his career. Brook is 30 now, and it’s become increasingly more difficult for him to make the 147lb limit.
Brook’s performance against Spence could very well reflect that. If Brook is drained for the Spence fight, then he’s not going to do well against him no matter what game plan that his trainer Ingle comes up with. Spence isn’t the type that can be out-slicked, and he’s probably not going to be foiled by Brook’s holding or movement. Brook can spoil when he’s facing a tough fighter.
When Brook is facing lesser welterweights, he becomes a slugger and looks for knockouts. Brook’s fighting style depends on who he’s facing. Against Spence, Brook could fall back into the clinching fighter that held Shawn Porter all night long in their fight in 2014.