By Scott Gilfoid: Middleweight Gabriel Rosado says that Errol Spence Jr. (21-0, 18 KOs) is in a bad situation with him going into the UK to fight IBF welterweight champion Kell “Special K” Brook (36-1-1, 25 KOs) this month on May 27 at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England. Brook is British, so he’ll be fighting in front of a large crowd of supportive English boxing fans on the night.
Rosado, who found himself on the receiving end of a controversial 12 round majority decision last month against British fighter Martin Murray on April 22 in Liverpool, England, thinks that Spence will possibly be robbed of a win if he doesn’t knock Brook out or beat him a blowout decision that he can’t messed up.
Unfortunately, Brook has had a couple of controversial decision wins in his career against American fighters. In Brook’s first fight against Carson Jones in July 2012, Brook won a VERY controversial 12 round majority decision. The fight took place in Sheffield, England, the same place where Spence will be fighting Brook on May 27. Brook appeared to lose the last 6 rounds of the fight against Carson Jones, but he was still given a 12 round decision.
Brook was out on his feet in the 12th, and he did a lot of holding and got away with it without being disqualified or penalized. I thought Brook should have lost at least 3 points for his excessive holding. It was so bad to watch. Brook’s other controversial win over an American was against Shawn Porter in 2014. This fight took place in the U.S. Once again, Brook got away with constant clinching without being penalized or disqualified. Even with Brook’s nonstop clinching, Boxing News 24 had Porter winning 9 rounds to 3. 2 of those rounds were mercy rounds.
You can argue that Porter deserved the win by an 11 rounds to 1 score, because you couldn’t give Brook rounds in which he was holding 10 to 15 times. Brook wasn’t even disguising his clinching. There were times where Brook would launch himself at Porter in a straight in a straight clinch without punches thrown. It was as if Brook’s clinching was his entire offense. I don’t know what fight the judges were watching, but it wasn’t the same one that I saw.
“Any fighter that goes to the UK is taking a big risk of getting robbed on the scorecards. It’s unfortunate,” said Rosado to Villianfy Media. “If Spence doesn’t knock Brook out, he could be looking at [getting robbed of a decision]. If it’s a close fight, it’s going to Brook. Listen, he needs to blow him out or knock him out,” said Rosado.
Well, I think Spence realizes what he’s up against in fighting Brook in Sheffield on May 27. Spence is going to make sure the judges are only there in body only without them being able to put their 2 cents in to score the fight. Spence and his trainer Derrick James already have their battle plans for the Brook fight. They know that they can’t be focusing on boxing him. They may have to knock Brook out for them to make sure there isn’t any chance of a controversial decision. We know how judges are said to be influenced by the yapping from the crowd.
On May 27, there will be 32,000 boxing fans at Bramall Lane to see the Brook-Spence fight, and you can believe that number will almost surely be almost all Brook fans. Frankly, I’d be surprised if Spence has even 100 fans inside the Stadium on the night. It’s not that Spence isn’t a popular fighter. It’s that his fans are across the pond in the U.S. Spence isn’t a big star in the UK yet. I think he will in the near future once he becomes the new face of the welterweight division.
Spence has the kind of Golovkin-esque personality that will turn him into a star in the UK, as well as the U.S. I wouldn’t be surprised if Spence becomes a PPV star in the UK at some point in the future. Spence’s promoters just need to make sure that they have him fight enough times in the UK for him to win over the British boxing fans. Unfortunately for Spence, there aren’t many talented welterweights in the UK. There’s only Brook, who likely will be fighting for the last time at 147 before he’s forced to move up to 154 due to his struggles to make the weight for the class.
There’s always politics involved,” said Rosado about controversial decisions in boxing. ”At the same time, Spence has the heavy name behind him. He has [Al] Haymon, where people are going to make sure he’s in a good situation. I’m pretty sure they’re going to keep the judges neutral; maybe one from England and one from America or one from the Philippines or something. You’ve got to have pull to make moves like that. Obviously he’s a champion, and you want to make sure he gets the belt,” said Rosado.
Gosh, it would be terrible if we see a robbery in the Brook vs. Spence fight. The thing of it is, I don’t know if Brook’s boxing fans would be complaining too much if he’s given the victory. The anger would be on Spence’s side with him, his team and his fans. You’d like to think that Brook’s fans would cry foul if they saw their fighter win a decision that they felt wasn’t deserved. That would be in the best interest in boxing, because it would force a rematch to take place due to the pressure from the fans. But without there being pressure from both sides, I doubt that Spence would get a second fight. We’ve seen what Brook did in the past after his controversial win over Shawn Porter in 2014. Brook moved on and never gave Porter a rematch.
It was as if Brook was happy with his controversial win. Since all we have to go by from Brook is what he’s done in the past, I think Spence’s chances for a rematch with Kell are slim and none. That’s why it’s important that Spence makes sure that the fight isn’t a close one if he wants to make sure he’s crowned on May 27. Spence has got to take the judges out of the equation to make sure he gets the ‘W’ in this fight against Porter.
Gabriel Rosado fought his heart out in getting the better of Martin Murray in their fight at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England. I had Rosado winning a comfortable decision. When the bell sounded to end the fight after the 12th round, I thought it was a pretty cut and dried situation with Rosado winning by at least 4 rounds. I was even thinking about who Rosado would be fighting next. Moments later, I was completely stunned and flabbergasted when the judges’ scores were announced in revealing that Martin Murray had won the fight by a 12 round majority decision.
Rosado looked so disappointed. It was hard to watch. He had fought his heart out and lost a bitterly controversial decision. As far as I can tell, Murray and his promoter Eddie Hearn have said nothing about giving Rosado a rematch. It looks like they’re moving on rather than giving Rosado a rematch.
