By Scott Gilfoid: 2012 U.S Olympian Errol “The Truth” Spence Jr. (21-0, 18 KOs) says IBF welterweight champion Kell “Special One” Brook (36-1, 25 KOs) is probably motivated not to be embarrassed by losing in his hometown of Sheffield in their fight on May 20. Brook, 30, is defending his International Boxing Federation title for the fourth time since winning it in 2014, but this is a much different defense for him.
Up until now, Brook has been fighting easy title defenses against over-matched opposition in Frankie Gavin, Jo Jo Dan and Kevin Bizier. Those were arguably soft jobs for Brook. But now Brook has been ordered by the IBF to fight a good fighter in Spence, who has been pegged by some boxing fans as being the replacement for Floyd Mayweather Jr. as the next talent in the 147lb division. Spence obviously isn’t going to replace Mayweather in the charisma department, but he might have the boxing ability to replace him in the talent department.
That’s potentially dreadful news for Brook, because he’s not viewed as the replacement for Mayweather. Brook is just seen as good basic welterweight, who used a gimmick of nonstop clinching to beat former IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter in 2014. Having seen video recently of heavyweight Henry Akinwande disqualified for excessive clinching in his fight against Lennox Lewis years ago, it makes you wonder whether the referees no longer enforce the excessive clinching rule, because Brook got away with a massive amount of holding against Porter without being disqualified. Heck, Brook didn’t even have a point docked from him for his excessive holding. Poor Porter, he was out there on his own with a constantly grabbing Brook in their 2014 fight, and the referee failed to stop the holding.
“Kell Brook is a strong fighter,” said Spence to Fighthype.com. “He says he’s going to take it seriously. He’s fighting in his hometown. He’s got to be motivated not to get embarrassed in his hometown,” said Spence.
Fighting in one’s hometown doesn’t change things in terms of talent. If Brook doesn’t have the talent to beat Spence, then it’s not going to help him fighting in front of his boxing fans in Sheffield. It might actually work against Brook if he gets too brave and decides to slug with Spence, because this is the wrong fighter for him to be slugging with. Spence is like the welterweight division’s version of Gennady Golovkin in my opinion.
If Brook gets brave due to his cheering fans on the night, he could walk straight into the teeth of Spence’s offense and get chewed up. Spence is like meat grinder if you go at him. He normally has to chase his opponents down, which is why it probably won’t be a good idea for Brook to run from him like he did in his loss to middleweight talent Gennady Golovkin on September 10 last year.
I hate to say it, but if Brook runs from Spence, he’s going to get chased down and likely embarrassed in front of his fans at Bramall Lane in Sheffield. UK. It’s one thing for Brook to run from a middleweight knockout artist like Golovkin, but quite another thing for him to run from someone from his own weight class in Errol Spence. Brook won’t get the same pass from the boxing fans if he runs from Spence for 12 rounds and looks to spoil like he did against GGG and Porter. The only positive thing in Brook fighting in front of his own fans in Sheffield is that the constant cheering from his fans may influence the scoring of the judges.
The judges might be unconsciously influenced by the cheering, and give Brook enough rounds for him to win a highly controversial decision. If Brook beats Spence by a questionable decision, I doubt that he’ll bother giving him a rematch. He sure didn’t give Porter a rematch after his controversial decision over him. I just wonder if the IBF will drop Spence from the rankings if he lose to Brook like we saw with Porter. That was weird. Porter gets dropped from the IBF’s top 15 after losing to Brook. Kevin Bizier didn’t get dropped from the IBF’s rankings after he lost to Jo Jo Dan. Bizier was able to quickly get pushed to No.1 in the IBF’s rankings despite losing TWICE to Jo Jo Dan in 2013 and 2014.
In speaking about Brook’s complaints about how hard it is for him to get down to 147, Spence said, “I had trouble too. Most guys have trouble making weight. It’s not about fighting in a high weight class. You have Shawn Porter, and you ask Adrien Broner how much they walk around, and I guarantee you they say they walk around in the 170s. Yeah, I got that heavy. I got 177, 176. I don’t care where I fight him [Brook]. I’ll fight him in his kitchen if I have to. I’m excited about this opportunity,” said Spence about the Kell Brook fight.
Spence rehydrates into the 170s just like Brook. The only difference is Spence doesn’t belly ache about his struggles to make weight like Brook does. Brook needs to do whatever he has to do for him to make weight for the Spence fight, and not use that as an excuse if things end badly for him. I mean, if Brook gets whipped by Spence, I hope he doesn’t resort to using him making weigh for the fight as the reason for the loss instead of him giving him credit for the victory. Brook blamed his 5th round knockout loss to Golovkin on him having an eye injury instead of him facing a more talented fighter with better power.
Personally, I don’t think Brook’s eye injury had anything to do whatsoever with why Brook was beaten by GGG in that fight. In watching the 5th round in slow motion, I noticed that Brook stopped throwing punches after Golovkin hit him with a right hand body shot. Brook leaned forward after being hit by the body shot in a classic sign of being hurt.
Brook then dropped his guard from his head to his midsection and kept it there for the last 20 seconds of the fight. When Golovkin saw that Brook was no longer protecting his head, he teed off on him with power shots. Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle had no other option but to throw the white towel of surrender into the ring when he saw his fighter in distress and no longer trying to throw shots or protect his head. It was interesting to watch how Brook was trying to taunt Golovkin in the final moments of the fight, holding his arms out to the sides, as if to say ‘See, you can’t hit me.’
The thing is, Golovkin was hitting Brook an awful lot in the last seconds of the fight. That’s why when the referee did stop the fight, Brook staggered with his two steps towards his corner. He looked like he was ready to go down. If Ingle had waited another 10-20 seconds before tossing in the white towel, I think Brook would have been deposited onto the canvas by Golovkin, and he wouldn’t have gotten up. Things were looking mighty bleak for Brook at the time of the stoppage, I must say.
