Brook: I took something out of Golovkin

By Boxing News - 03/26/2017 - Comments

Image: Brook: I took something out of Golovkin

By Dan Ambrose: Kell Brook is still taking credit for Daniel Jacobs (32-2, 29 KOs) giving middleweight world champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) problems last Saturday night in their fight at Madison Square Garden in New York. For boxing fans who don’t remember, Golovkin beat Brook by a 5th round TKO after the British fighter’s trainer Dominic Ingle tossed in the towel during the 5th when he quit throwing punches and was taking heavy punishment.

In Golovkin’s latest fight against Jacobs, he was taken the full distance with the 29-year-old New Yorker. Brook says the punishment that he inflicted on Golovkin took something out of him, making him more vulnerable against Jacobs. Brook doesn’t point out that Golovkin had been saying in the buildup to the Jacobs fight that he wanted to go 12 rounds because he felt it would be good for him.

“Everyone has been saying that Golovkin is an animal, and the way I backed him up, I believe I knocked a bit of stuffing out of him in that fight,” said Brook to IFL TV about his fight with Golovkin last September. “What would have happened? I honestly think I took something out of him in that fight. I don’t know what his knockout streak was before that fight, but all of a sudden he gone the distance in a very close fight, and I believe it could have gone either way,” said Brook about the Golovkin vs. Danny Jacobs fight last Saturday night.

Brook has a fight against his IBF mandatory challenger Errol Spence Jr. (21-0, 18 KOs) on May 27 at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England. It’s bad news for Brook to be living off his loss to Golovkin, treating it’s a moral victory that he was able to land a few punches. Brook showed in that he was only capable of landing punches and then running from Golovkin. That’s not a winning recipe that Brook will be able to use to get past a dangerous puncher like Spence. If anything, Spence is even better at cutting off the ring compared to Golovkin. Spence likes to his jab frequently. Brook is going to have a lot of problems in that fight. It’s not good if all Brook is going to be living in the past and thinking about the Golovkin fight continuously, as if he it was a moral victory that he was able to go 5 rounds.

Brook landed one really good shot in the entire fight, and that was an uppercut that he landed in round 2. Golovkin took it and came after Brook immediately, and he took off running rather than standing and righting. The other punches that Brook landed in the fight were arm shots where he wasn’t sitting down on the shots. The reason for that is likely because Brook was always hitting and planning his exit to get away once he got his shots off.

If Brook wants to call the hit and run style a blue-print in how to beat Golovkin, then so be it. I think it’s a waste of time for fighters to use that approach because they ruin their only chance of winning by doing what’s nature for them with their own particular fighting styles. Jacobs would have been much better off if he came forward and fought Golovkin in a toe-to-toe battle instead of running around the ring for 12 rounds the way he did. Jacobs ruined his chance of winning the fight by him showing the three judges that he didn’t have the self-belief to stand and fight.

Brook didn’t really land that many punch in each round. The instances where Brook was landing shots were quite rare. It was Golovkin who landed more punches in the fight, and more of the harder variety. The broken right eye socket that Brook suffered reflects the kind of power that Golovkin was throwing in the fight. When Golovkin was connecting with his shots, he was hitting Brook with major power that he did not react well to. Brook wouldn’t stay in the pocket like he’d done in his other fights. He was on his bike to try and no get hit as much as possible. This limited the amount of punches Brook was able to land because he was simply unwilling to stand and fight GGG.

“I think I put the blueprint out there in how to beat him, and someone nearly did it,” said Brook in taking credit for Jacobs being competitive with Golovkin for 12 rounds.

Jacobs failed to beat Golovkin, so if Brook created a blueprint in how to beat him, then he failed. Jacobs might have been following Brook’s blue print a little too closely unfortunately for him. By hitting and moving for 12 rounds, Jacobs failed to land enough power shots to give himself a chance to win. Jacobs didn’t seem to have the heart to stand in the pocket and fight Golovkin for long periods after he was knocked down in round 4. It was pretty clear from that knockdown that Jacobs couldn’t handle the power of Golovkin in a one on one fight.

Golovkin was able to handle Jacobs’ power without any problems. Jacobs couldn’t handle Golovkin’s power because he showed no desire to stand and fight him the way he needed to do as the challenger. There’s an unwritten rule that the challenger needs to do more to take the belt from a champion by taking risks and putting out effort. Jacobs fought a timid fight like he was the champion and Golovkin was the challenger. When you fight the way that Jacobs did, you end up losing. Hopefully, Jacobs can learn a lesson from the defeat. He’s got good boxing skills, but he’s got to show more intensity and be more aggressive for his bigger fights.