By Scott Gilfoid: British promoter Eddie Hearn wanted to make it clear to the boxing media after his fighter Kell Brook lost to Errol Spence Jr. last Saturday night that he had wanted him to move to 154 to campaign at junior middleweight. Hearn maintains that Brook (36-2, 25 KOs) would be better at 154 than he would at 147.
Brook didn’t listen to Hearn, and he ended up getting stopped in the 11th round after taking a knee and being counted out by referee Howard John Foster. Brook suffered a broken left eye socket in the fight. That injury is going to take the 31-year-old Brook a lot of months to recover if the surgery on his eye is a success. Once Brook comes back from the surgery and is ready to fight again, Hearn wants him to take an interim fight before facing Amir Khan in a big fight in 2018. Hearn believes that the British boxing public still wants to see Brook and Khan fight each other.
“It’s still a big fight,” said Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn said to Fighthype. “Both of those guys need an interim fight. Amir wants an interim fight anyway, so it might work out well for him, but I still like to see Brook against Khan. Hopefully we can make that next year. Yes, I believe so,” said Hearn.
I don’t know if the Brook vs. Khan fight is still a big one. It might sell out a smaller venue like the O2 Arena in London, England, but Hearn can forget about sticking the two of them together at Wembley Stadium and expect 90,000 boxing fans to turn up to see it. The success for the two of them hasn’t been there as of late. Brook keeps losing and getting eye injuries, and Khan has been slow in returning to the ring since his hand surgery and knockout loss to Saul Canelo Alvarez in 2016.
Brook-Khan could be a big fight if the two of them would start winning again, preferably against talented fighters and not obscure guys. Brook has only beaten 1 good fighter during his career in Shawn Porter. It would be nice if Brook showed that he can beat good fighters on a regular basis instead of just once per every 13 years, which is what Brook has done during his career. Khan has never really beaten anyone good unless you count over-the-hill fighters like Zab Judah and Paulie Malignaggi.
“Gutted obviously for Kell,” said Hearn. “I think it was a mixture of things really. The injury, the weight, and Errol Spence is quality. I’d like to use the final one of those two as the factor, because I said before I’m not going to talk about weight. He didn’t make the weight badly. The injury didn’t help, of course, but Errol kept coming. He’s a roughhouse, a great body puncher. He kept Kell under a lot of pressure, and at the end, it told. He would have been more solid at 154. He would have a little bit more durability. The fight wasn’t at 154. That’s totally irrelevant. The fight was at 147, and the better man won on the night. First things first, we’ll deal with the injury and go from there,” said Hearn.
Brook’s left eye would have been injured even if the fight with Spence had taken place at 154. It wouldn’t have changed anything. Brook was going to have problems with Spence regardless. If Hearn is going to have Brook fighting at junior middleweight, then he should slowly get him ready to fight the better guys in that weight class. Hearn shouldn’t throw Brook in with a good fighter right off the bat because that would end badly for him.
Brook seems to be falling apart when he gets hit hard lately. I don’t know why Hearn thinks it’s a good idea to have him move up to 154. If Brook is getting broken apart at 147, then he sure as heck won’t do well at 154 where the guys are bigger and stronger.
I felt like he should have moved to 154 before the fight,” said Hearn about Brook. “He certainly needs to now if he’s to continue, and I believe he’ll want to continue, and I believe he’ll want to continue. He’s still one of the best fighters in the world. So let’s get this injury sorted out and look at options. He’s gone to the hospital. I think it’s the same injury as the [Gennady] Golovkin fight, which is unbelievable. He was caught by Errol, so no excuses in the fight. He was beaten by the better man tonight and that was Errol Spence. The surgeon was in the ring immediately after and he was very confident of the operation, but it’s a big blow to the career,” said Hearn.
I REALLY don’t think it’s a good idea for Brook to move up in weight. I’m predicting that if Brook moves up to junior middleweight, his career will be over with. He’ll get knocked once again and find himself in a place where he can’t crawl out of, Losing 3 straight fights will very likely cause Brook’s boxing fans to drift away and start backing Spence or one of the other welterweights. I don’t think they’re going to jump on board the Khan or Sam Eggington express. Those guys aren’t going to be winning world titles in my view. The talent just isn’t there. Khan was a decent fighter when he fought at light welterweight. He wasn’t a great fighter though. We saw that with Khan losing to Lamont Peterson and Danny Garcia. He tried the best he could but he didn’t stick around in the 140 pound division after he lost those 2 fights.
”It was a pain to go through the first one,” said Hearn about Brooks broken right eye socket he suffered in the Gennady Golovkin fight. ”Now he’s got to go through another one. That’s boxing. With that said, it was caused by Errol Spence, a great fighter<. Again, we said before there would be no excuses at the weight. He didn’t make the weight horribly. He just made the weight the same weight every other time. We were quite happy with how he made the weight. It was a big win for the career of Errol Spence,” said Hearn.
Brook didn’t lose the fight to Spence because of the weight. He lost because he fought a better guy. If Brook didn’t fight a talent like Spence, he likely would have beaten most of the other fighters in the division last Saturday. Losing to Spence isn’t a good reason for Brook to give up fighting at 147. That’s a dumb thing to go. Brook lost to a very good fighter. Moving up to 154 just because he didn’t beat Spence is stupid beyond belief. I would be willing to bet if Spence followed Brook up to junior middleweight, he’d beat him in that weight division as well.
“Wow, unbeatable, nobody saw him taking a knee to get out of this one,” said Shawn Porter to Fighthype.com about Brook taking a knee to get out of the fight with Spence. “He fought all the way to the end. A very good fight, a fantastic fight, and a fantastic performance from a fellow American and new world champion Errol Spence. He wore him down. I could also tell the part of the game plan was to use his jab and score from the outside, which is what he was able to do,” said Porter.
Spence always uses his jab from the outside. He didn’t change anything from his normal way of fighting for the Brook fight. The only change that I saw was Spence was less aggressive in the first 4 rounds than he normally is in his fights. One reason for that is because Brook was doing so much holding. He wasn’t letting Spence let his hands go because he kept crowding him and holding.
“Collectively, it came together for him,” said Porter. “That’s what you need to do today, and bank every round and break he guy down. That’s tough when your eye gets swollen like that. You can’t see and the guys on you at that point. I think he did his best think he could, which is take a knee. The understanding is, ‘I’m not quitting. I just can’t do it tonight.’ I’m not sure where he can go from here,” said Porter.
Brook took a knee in the 10th and 11h rounds to escape the punishment. He was getting beaten up by Spence, so he opted to take a knee to get a respite from the beating. Brook couldn’t use his boxing skills to move around the ring because Spence’s foot speed was too fast for Brook to get away from him.
“He’s got to rest up, let him recover and let him figure that out, maybe a rematch with Errol Spence,” said Porter. “Up until 6 rounds, I had it tied. I had it 3-3. After that, Errol Spence pulled away and took over. I’m proud of that. It was a tough fight to call. He’s still strong. He’s still vibrant, and he’ll be alright,” said Porter about Brook.
I doesn’t matter that Porter had the fight tied between Brook and Spence through the first 6 rounds, because the fight wasn’t going to go to the scorecards anyway. Spence wasn’t going to let Brook go the full 12 rounds.
