By Scott Gilfoid: In the first day of ticket sales for the welterweight clash between IBF champion Kell Brook and challenger Errol Spence Jr. saw an incredible 17,000 tickets sold for their May 27 fight at Bramall Lane in Sheffield. England. The stadium seats 32,000 fans, and it’s quite possible we could see a sellout by early next week for the fight. It’s nice to see how much interest there is in the clash. Brook, 30, has a lot of boxing fans from his home country.
The fans will be streaming in on May 27 to show their support of their recently beaten fighter. Brook was stopped in the 5th round in his last fight by IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin last September at the O2 Arena in London, England. Brook fought at middleweight in that clash. He’ll need to drop a lot of eight to get down to the 147 pound limit for the Spence fight, otherwise he’ll be stripped of his IBF title on the scales.
Brook is still looking kind of flabby around the face, even though appears to be dropping weight. He’ll need to drop a heck of a lot to make weight. I’m predicting that Brook ends up weakened, dehydrated, and unable to put up much of a fight on the night. Just dropping the weight will likely beat Brook. What’s kind of funny is that Brook is saying that he’s a natural welterweight. He’s obviously not a natural welterweight. If you walk around at 180 in between fights, you’re not a natural welterweight. You’re basically a natural middleweight or junior middleweight.
“I’ve had a load of messages, loads of calls today, everybody wanting those tickets,” said Kell Brook to Sky Sports News HQ about boxing fans wanting tickets for his fight with Errol Spence at Bramall Lane. “Everybody has been queuing to Bramall Lane, so it’s first come first served. You want to get down there and get your tickets, because this is a historical fight. I can’t wait to fill the stadium up. I can’t wait for the challenge. We’ve heard big things about this Errol Spence,” said Brook.
The fans will have Brook revved up by fight time on May 27, but he still figures to be up against it in this fight. Brook’s boxing fans had him highly motivated for his last fight against GGG, but he was only able to fight in brief cycles. Brook wasn’t able to fight hard consistently for 3 minutes of every round the way he needed for him to have a chance of winning. What we saw instead was Brook fighting hard for 5 seconds, and then him moving away from Golovkin and repeating the cycle 1 minute later.
I counted 2 or 3 brief cycles of activity from Brook in each round. The rest of the time, he was running and taking shots. It wasn’t a style to actually win the fight. It was more of someone just trying to survive. Brook will need to change that way of fighting for him to have any kind of chance at beating Spence, because he cuts off the ring too good, and his jab is too good for him to be beaten from someone that only fights only briefly each round.
Brook is saying that he’s being called “Terminator” by his fans due to the titanium plate that was inserted into his right eye socket by the surgeon that repaired his broken socket from his loss to Golovkin. From the way Brook talks about it, he seems to view it as a good thing that he’s got the piece of medal in his socket. I’m not sure that it’s a good thing. That eye hasn’t been tested in a fight yet, and we could see the eye swell up on Brook when he starts getting nailed by Spence during the fight. I’m just saying.
I think it’s bad news that Brook now has a titanium plate in his eye socket, because you never know what will happen once he starts getting tagged by Spence, who may hit just as hard as Golovkin. Spence is an explosive puncher with better hand speed than Golovkin, and he weighs almost the same once he rehydrates.
“They built him up in America. He’s my mandatory challenger,” said Brook abut Spence. “He’s coming to fight. He’s ticked all the boxes for the ones they’ve put in front of him, but he’s fighting against me. My fans can’t wait for me to get my hands on him, to show him. It’s a massive, massive fight down there in Bramall Lane. I can’t wait. I can’t wait to lock horns with him on May the 27th. They call me the ‘Terminator’ now because I have a little bit of metal in my head. I think after being in such a massive fight, I know the pressure of walking into a big arena, packed out and being in there with a big puncher,” said Brook.
Spence has a lot of boxing fans and top fighters singing his praises because he’s performing at a high level. This isn’t just hype. Spence is going out and showing that he’s got the talent each time he fights. Spence’s recent knockout wins over Chris Algieri and Leonard Bundu were very impressive. No one had ever knocked out either of those guys before Spence did it. It would be interesting to see if Brook could stop either of those guys. I don’t know that he could. Bundu would be a difficult opponent for Brook and Algieri might actually beat him if given the chance to face him. Spence appears to be legitimate. We’re going to see how good he is when he gets inside the ring with Brook.
The one thing we don’t know about Spence is how he deals with a tricky fighter that uses spoiling tactics to stifle his offense the way that Brook likely will. When Brook starts initiating 10+ clinches per round like he did in the Shawn Porter fight, then we’ll see how good Spence is. He’ll have to deal with all that holding from Brook if the referee is missing in action on May 27 like what was the case in the Brook-Porter fight in 2014. If Spence can handle the nonstop holding from Brook and still knock him out, then we’ll know what kind of talent he has.
“I’ve learned a lot from that fight. I’ve come back from that,” said Brook in talking about his defeat at the hands of Triple G. “It made me work a little bit harder. I never want to suffer that kind of defeat again. I’m more at my natural weight. I moved up to fight Golovkin, a big puncher at middleweight. I’m more a natural welterweight. I’m big, strong and healthy. I’ve never been beaten, never been looked to be beaten at welterweight. So I’m excited to back at my natural weight. That’s what I’m going for,” said Brook in saying he’s shooting for a knockout of Spence. “It’s going to be fireworks. It’s the best fighting the best at a packed out 25,000 at Bramall Lane,” said Brook.
I wish I could say that Brook has improved from the Golovkin fight, but I don’t think he will have improved enough for him to have a chance of beating Spence. It seems painfully obvious what Brook was doing wrong in the Golovkin fight. Brook wasn’t standing his ground, he wasn’t jabbing, and he was failing to throw a lot of punches. The way to give Golovkin problems is by throwing a lot of punches, and making sure that you jab him each time there’s separation between you and him. You don’t run around the ring like Brook did, because you can’t maintain that much movement for any length of time without tiring. Moreover, Golovkin cuts off the ring expertly against runners, and you end up getting trapped.
Being trapped when you’re tired from running is a losing proposition. That’s why Brook should have stood his ground against Golovkin and just fought him the best that he could. I think Brook is going to go back to the same style that he used against Golovkin when he gets inside the ring with Spence on May 27. If there’s going to be any changes to Brook’s style of fighting, I think it will be a minor change with him using a few more punches but not nearly enough to get the job done.
We don’t know how good Spence is in the chin department because he’s not faced a big puncher like Brook before at the pro level. I think Brook needs to test Spence’s chin and stick with the fighting style that has got him to this point. Up until Brook’s fights against Shawn Porter and Golovkin, he’d always been the aggressor during his career. Brook was effective with that style of fighting, but for some reason he became defensive in the Porter and Golovkin fight. Brook didn’t’ seem to trust his own ability to win with his offensive skills. He fought a losing fight in both of those fights. He was fortunate to get the win over Porter, because many boxing fans thought he lost. I know I did. Brook needs to at least try and fight Spence instead of running and holding like he did against Golovkin and Porter.