By Scott Gilfoid: American promoter Lou Dibella refuses to make a prediction on the May 20 fight between IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook and unbeaten 2012 U.S Olympian Errol Spence Jr. for their fight in Sheffield, England. What Dibella will say is the 26-year-old Spence has never fought anyone as good as the 30-year-old Brook before during his short 4-year pro career. That’s obvious though, as Spence (21-0, 18 KOs) has only had a handful of fights against quality opposition. But the same can be said for Brook, whose resume is embarrassingly empty of talented fighters.
Brook (36-1, 25 KOs) only has 2 fighters on his entire resume that have any kind of talent and those are Shawn Porter and Gennady Golovkin. The rest of the guys that Brook has fought are fighters like Matthew Hatton, Jo Jo Dan, Kevin Bizier and Carson Jones. Brook burned through his first 12 years of his career dining on weak opposition. His win over Porter was one that easily could have gone the other way. Indeed, I scored the fight for Porter. I thought that Brook should have been disqualified for his excessive holding, which the referee did nothing to address during the fight by taking points off.
“Kell Brook is an excellent fighter and it’s a very tough fight. Spence has never fought anyone as good as Brook,” said Dibella to skysports.com. “It’s also going to be interesting to see how Brook adjusts to going back down to 147[lbs],” said Dibella.
Spence’s body punching is going to take a lot of Brook. Spence is going to be landing his big body shots right off the bat rather than waiting until round 5 to start giving it to him the way Gennady Golovkin did.
We saw what happened to Brook in his last fight against Gennady Golovkin when he couldn’t use a lot of holding like he did in the Porter fight. Golovkin had Brook on the run for 4 rounds before he trapped him against the ropes and hurt him with a body shot in round 5. The fight was stopped 20 seconds later after Brook stopped throwing punches and just stood against the ropes trying to dodge Golovkin’s knockout shots.
Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle had no choice but to throw in the towel when he saw that Brook was no longer throwing punches. It was the body shot that Golovkin landed in the 5th that took the fight out of Brook. Golovkin hadn’t been throwing body punches until the 5th.
Once he turned his attention to Brook’s midsection, he discovered that he couldn’t handle the body shots. That’s bad news for Brook that he’s fighting arguably the best body puncher in the 147 lb. division in Spence. It’s going to be hard enough for Brook to lose the weight to get down to the 147lb limit for the fight.
Taking all that weight off is going to be difficult for Brook. When he puts it back on, he’s very likely going to feel sluggish and weak on his feet. Spence is going to take the movement out of Brook by focusing his punches to the body, and that’s going to be awfully tough on him. When you’re weak from having dropped a lot of weight, it’s hard on you when your opponent lands a lot of crushing body shots the way that Spence will be doing.
“In England, I’m going to guess that Kell is the favorite, but I wouldn’t bet against Spence,” said Dibella. “To be honest, I think it’s a very hard fight to call.”
I don’t think it matters if some of the bettors make Brook the favorite. They’re not going to be the ones inside the ring taking the big shots from Spence on May 20. It’s going to be Brook that is going to be absorbing all those body shots, and it’s going to be extremely difficult for him to take the punches for the full 12 rounds without him getting stopped. If you look at how Brook fought Golovkin and Porter, he used a lot of movement and holding to keep from getting worked over.
Golovkin wisely took away Brook’s ability to move in round 5 when he hit him with a thudding right hand body shot that seemed to pass completely through Brook. That shot caused Brook to bend forward slightly and drop his hands. Brook was done after that. He stopped protecting his head, and he could no longer move like he had before Golovkin landed the shot.
Brook used the ropes as a walking cane to get to the other side of the ring. That’s where Golovkin trapped Brook against the ropes for what was a last stand for the “Special One.” The odds-makers can make Brook the favorite, but I don’t see it going well for him at all. Even if Brook goes back to his Porter game plan of excessive holding, I see Spence knocking him out with a body shot.
Spence is so powerful that you can’t hold him the way Brook was constantly holding Porter. Spence will wrestle an arm free and pound the stuffing out of Brook’s midsection. Spence is that powerful. He can be held and still wind up with a free arm to nail his opponents with brutal body shots.
I would hope for Brook’s sake he doesn’t revert to his nonstop holding, because it’ll make him look bad in front of his own boxing fans at Bramall Lane. Look at it this way: If Brook is going to lose the fight anyway, he’s better off losing by looking brave like he did at times in his fight against Golovkin.
Contrary to the popular opinion, Brook did not fight a brave fight against Golovkin for the most part. Brook did a lot of running and holding in that fight, He only periodically threw punches, and he definitely didn’t throw enough shots for him to win 3 rounds like one just had him winning. Likewise, Brook didn’t throw enough punches to win 2 rounds like two of the judges had him winning.
Incredibly, two of the judges had Brook even with Golovkin at 2 rounds at piece after the 4th round. I saw the fight and had Brook only winning round 2. I couldn’t give him round 1 because he was almost knocked out. I couldn’t give him round 3, because he took total punishment from Golovkin. Round 4 was more of the same with Golovkin blasting away a shaken looking Brook, who was in the retreat mode for 2 ½ minutes of the round.