By Scott Gilfoid: Kell Brook (36-2, 25 KOs) says he’s had a CT scan and it’s confirmed that the 31-year-old suffered a broken left eye socket in his 11th round knockout loss to unbeaten Errol Spence Jr. (22-0, 19 KOs) last Saturday night in his fight at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England. Brook says he’s possibly looking surgery to repair the busted eye socket. This is terrible news for Brook’s career. Losing 2 fights in a row is bad enough, but to suffer consecutive broken eye sockets to different eyes, this is really bad.
Brook says the eye injury is a bad one like the broken right eye socket he suffered in his previous fight against Gennady “GGG” Golovkin on September 10 last year in London, England. Brook needed 8 months to come back from the surgery to continue his boxing career. It remains to be seen how much time Brook will need to come back from his latest broken eye socket to his left eye. If Brook does need an extended amount of time to recover, then we might not see him back inside the ring until 2018.
Brook said after his loss to Spence last Saturday night that he believes he can still make 147 to stay in the welterweight division. However, Brook is now saying that he thinks it’s time for him to move up to the 154 pound division to start fighting at junior middleweight. One thing that could change Brook’s mind is a big money fight against his nemesis Amir Khan, who likely would want no part of fighting at 154. The weight doesn’t help Khan, who looked sluggish in getting stopped by Saul Canelo Alvarez in the 6th round in his last fight in May of 2016. Khan STILL hasn’t fought ever since that fight.
“They kept me in until about 3am. I had a CT scan on my eye and the eye is broken again, same as the Golovkin one, so, maybe surgery again,” said Brook to Sky Sports News HQ. “I think the time is now maybe to move up.”
I don’t think Brook is going to find success at 154, but he’s going to have to find that out on his own. After Brook starts losing to good opposition from the junior middleweight division, I think he’ll realize that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side and he’ll want to come back to 147. Brook needs to realize that it’s better for him to be a big fish in a small pond than it is for him to be a minnow at junior middleweight. I don’t think for a second that Brook is going to do well against the bigger 154 lb. fighters like Erickson Lubin, Demetrius Andrade and Jermell Charlo. Those guys can do the same things that Errol Spence Jr. did to him inside the ring last Saturday night, but they’re capable of doing it much faster due to their bigger frames. Spence is only 5’9”, and he doesn’t have the natural size those guys do.
I think it’s a tremendous overreach on Brook’s part for him to move up in weight to 154 after losing back to back to Spence and Golovkin. Believe me; Brook’s problems are not going to be solved by him fighting at junior middleweight. Brook didn’t lose to Golovkin because he was having problems making 147. That fight took place at 160, and Brook broke down even faster against GGG than he did against Spence. Likewise, if Brook moves to 154, he’s going to be dealing with a lot of big punchers that will be hitting him almost as hard as Golovkin did. Brook might have a chance against someone like Erislandy Lara or Miguel Cotto. He’s obviously not going to get a fight with Cotto before the Puerto Rican retires from boxing in the near future.
It’s unclear why Brook keeps suffering eye injuries all of a sudden. Getting a busted eye socket against a puncher like Gennady Golovkin could be viewed as a freak accident, and a hazard of the trade. Nonetheless, for Brook to suffer ANOTHER broken eye socket to the other eye, it just makes me one wonder whether he has a weakness in his eye sockets. Yeah, Brook went through his 36 fights of his pro career without suffering an eye injury, but he also wasn’t facing punchers like he is now. Brook was fighting guys like Carson Jones, Frank Bizier, Jo Jo Dan, Matthew Hatton, Shawn Porter and Vyacheslav Senchenko. Those are not huge punchers.
In Brook’s last 2 fights, he’s graduated to the bigger punchers in boxing in taking on Golovkin and Spence. What we’re finding out is the mind is willing for Brook but the flesh is weak. He’s breaking down against the bigger punchers.
The good news for Brook is the titanium plate that was inserted into his left eye to shore up the broken eye socket from his loss to Golovkin held together against Spence. Perhaps if Brook’s surgeon inserts a titanium plate in his newly broken left eye socket it could strengthen it so that he won’t ever have this problem again in the future? I’m not sure if that will fix the problem that Brook keeps having with his eye socket issues, but one can only hope. If Brook is going to keep having this problem, it could shorten his boxing career. I don’t think it’s healthy for Brook to be suffering busted eye sockets once a year.
At some point, Brook is going to need to consider retirement if this keeps happening to him. Of course, I think the question of retirement could come about for other reasons for Brook if he keeps losing the way he’s been lately. Brook has now lost his last 2 fights to Spence and Golovkin. If those losses continue to occur, then Brook’s career is going to implode to the point where he’ll be getting stopped by all of the top contenders and champions. Brook may start getting diminishing returns with the boxing fans being less interested in seeing his fights if he doesn’t start winning again.
“I knew from round seven that the eye had gone and progressively as the rounds went on. I tried to get through the fight and it kept going double vision and then coming back into line,” said Brook. “In the later rounds 10 and 11, especially 11th round, it stuck there and that’s why I went down on one knee.”
I don’t see Brook’e being the main reason for him losing to Spence. The fight had started to go badly for Brook in the last 20 seconds of round 5, and this was well before Brook suffered the eye injury. Spence started to really paste Brook with big body shots in the closing moments of round 5. Whether Brook and his trainer Dominic Ingle wants to admit it or not, the main reason why Spence won the fight last Saturday night was because of the hard body punches he was landing.
In round 6, you could see that Brook was starting to take tremendous shots from Spence, who looked like he was just warming up. Spence was fighting with a lot more energy in the 6th than he had in the first 5 rounds and Brook couldn’t take it. Brook said that his left eye started to go on him in the 7th. However, in looking at the replay of the fight, Brook’s left eye looked perfectly fine in round 7, and that was a bad round for Brook. He got nailed by some hard body shots that seemed to take a lot out of him.
The swelling around Brook’s left eye occurred in round 8 after he was hit by a big left-right combination on the inside by Spence. Brook was crowding Spence, trying to keep him from throwing his shots by standing close and doing a lot of mauling and holding. Spence wasn’t having it, so he kept throwing shots while the two of them were close. Spence wanted to make sure he nailed Brook before he could wrap him in one of his typical bear-hugs, which he was using to stall out the fight by spoiling.
During one of Brook’s attempts at clinching in the 8th, Spence blasted him with a right-left combination to the head that immediately started the swelling underneath Brook’s left eye. As such, Brook is wrong about his eye giving him problems in the 7th. It was the 8th where he hurt his eye. Brook didn’t have welling around his left eye in round 7. That came a round later. Brook started to dab at his left eye in the 8th round only. Spence was working Brook over from the last part of the 5th.
“If the eye hadn’t have gone I think the fight would have mapped out a little bit differently but it is what it is and I didn’t get the win,” said Brook.
Oh look, Brook appears to be blaming his loss to Spence on his eye injury. This is same thing that Brook did in his loss to Golovkin. It’s so sad. I wish Brook would just give his conquerors like Spence credit for when they beat him. It’s a bad look for Brook not to be giving his opponents credit for after they whip him the way Spence did. Even without the injury, Brook was fading and taking TERRIBLE punishment starting in the 5th round.
The eye injury wasn’t a problem for Brook in the 6th and 7th rounds, and Spence clearly got the better of Brook in those rounds. If Brook wants to blame his loss to Spence on him being weight drained from having to get down to 147, then that’s something different. It’s convenient that Brook is now also mentioning that he thinks he needs to move up to 154, because it gives the impression that he would be a better fighter in that weight class.
I’m sorry but I think Brook would have lost to Spence last Saturday no matter what weight division they fought in. Even with Brook fighting Spence at 154 and without an eye injury, I think Spence would have done him in the same manner by wearing him down with pressure, hard body shots and expert boxing. To be sure, Brook is still a good fighter. He’s just not as good as Spence. I think Brook can beat a lot of top guys at 147 and 154, but obviously Spence isn’t one of them.
I’m sure if Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn trots out Jo Jo Dan, Frankie Gavin and Kevin Bizier from the 2nd tier ranks, Brook would beat the brakes off of them. But those are non-top 15 ranked fighters. They’re not contenders. They’re 2nd tier guys, and you can argue that they should have never been ranked in the top 15 in the first place. But I do think Brook can beat a lot of fighters at 147, but he’s got limitations. I see Brook losing to Shawn Porter, Manny Pacquiao, Tim Bradley, Keith Thurman, and Danny Garcia.
