By Scott Gilfoid: Oscar De La Hoya is one of many in the boxing world that was super impressed with unbeaten Errol Spence Jr. (22-0, 19 KOs) with his 11th round TKO win over IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (36-2, 25 KOs) at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England. Spence was brave enough to go to Brook’s backyard, break him down with big power shots to the body and head until the 31-year-old quit on one knee in round 11.
There’s some disagreement as to why Brook quit, as some fans believe he chose to stop fighting because of an eye injury he had sustained during the fight. But in looking at the body work that Spence had been doing to weaken Brook, it was pretty clear that he wasn’t going to make it the full distance even if his left eye hadn’t been injured. The righting was on the wall from the 1st round that Spence was going to eventually stop Brook at some point.
De La Hoya thinks that Spence can move up to junior middleweight and find success in that weight class as well. That’s probably not the news that Brook was hoping to hear, because he’s talking about wanting to move up to 154. Brook moves up in weight and has Spence lingering there, saying, ‘I’m ready for round 2,’ I think it would be bad for him. At least with the eye injury that Brook suffered in the Spence fight, he kind of was able to save face with his many boxing fans by pointing out that he was injured. But in a second fight against the talented Spence, Brook might wind up getting knocked out again.
I don’t think the boxing fans are going to buy into another injury excuse because he’s used those for his last 2 fights. A fighter can only use injury excuses so many times before the boxing public starts to look at the fighter like he’s fragile and more importantly, he’s not someone that can give his opponents credit for beating him.
“Sure enough, he beat Kell Brook, and the skies the limit for him,” said De La Hoya to Villianfy Media about Errol Spence Jr. “Nothing surprises me. He’s an amazing talent. He can move up in weight if he wants and challenge the very best. I think Spence is a fighter,” said De La Hoya.
I totally agree with Oscar about Spence. I think the SKY is the limit for this special T-A-L-E-N-T. However, Spence isn’t going to move up in weight to the 154 pound division just yet. Spence still has some big fish to fry at welterweight with fights against WBA/WBC champion Keith “One Time” Thurman, Manny Pacquiao, Danny Garcia, and Shawn Porter. Terence Crawford is also a possibility for Spence once he moves up to 147.
Hopefully, Crawford moves up in weight sooner rather than later, because if he waits too long to make the move, he could wind up missing a fight against Spence. But if the idea is to avoid Spence and a potential embarrassing knockout loss, then it’s probably a good idea for Crawford to take his time before moving to 147.
As for Brook, his career is very much uncertain following his defeat at the hands of Spence. Brook suffered a broken eye socket that he will soon need to have surgery on. Brook already had a similar injury that he sustained to his right eye socket in his 5th round knockout loss to Gennady “GGG” Golovkin last September. Brook had a titanium plate inserted into his right eye socket to strengthen it. The good news is the plate held up well during the Spence fight. If a second titanium plate is inserted into Brook’s newly broken left eye socket, then in theory his eyes should be able to hold up under the pounding that they’re going to receive in his fights at 154. We’ll have to see.
Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle believes that he suffered the left eye injury in the 6th round of the Spence fight. Brook was saying that he thought it happened in the 7th. I didn’t see Brook’s left eye showing signs of swelling until round 8. That’s when the swelling started and when he started to dab at the eye. Could it be that Ingle and Brook are both wrong about the timing of the injury?
Things obviously had turned sour for Brook by the last part of round 5. That’s when Spence started to get warmed up. It was all downhill from there for Brook, Spence gave Brook a pounding from round 6 until the 11th. It obviously makes Brook look better if the injury occurred in the 6th instead of the 8th, which is when I first saw signs that his eye was injured.
”It was easy to see the fight had a definite change after rounds six or seven,” Brook’s trainer Dominic Ingle said to skysports.com. “Hopefully the eye will get patched up, and he’ll eventually get it on with Amir Khan.”
If the idea is to get Brook over the finish line by having his left eye operated on so he can fight Amir Khan in a cash out fight, then I think that’s obviously a doable fight for Brook. Heck, Brook might even be able to win it. I don’t know that Brook can beat anyone other than Khan at this point. If you throw Brook into the ring in his next fight against the likes of Jermell Charlo, Erislandy Lara, Demetrius Andrade or Jarrett Hurd, I don’t think it’ll go too well for Brook.
Keeping Brook out of the ring until he fights Amir Khan would be the smartest thing to do, because I don’t think it’s worth the risk for Brook to fight anyone before that. Brook is too popular of a fighter for him to fight a 2nd tier guy at this point. He brings in too many boxing fans to see his fights. You can’t feed him someone like Sam Eggnington or Frankie Gavin at this stage in his career. He’s got to fight someone really popular like Khan. That’s why I think the smart move is to keep Brook out of the ring until after Khan takes his tune-up fight, and then face him straightaway for a big money cash out fight.
Both guys can then retire after the fight. I think that’s pretty much the only thing they can do. Neither fighter is going any were. If Brook beats Khan, it’s not going to have much meaning. Beating Khan doesn’t translate into Brook being able to step into the ring and match-up with the top fighters at 154 like Jermell Charlo. The only thing Brook will accomplish in beating Khan is him defeating a fighter from yesteryear who is no longer one of the top dogs at 147.
”Although Spence Jr was good, he wasn’t as heavy a hitter as Golovkin,” said Ingle.
Ingle says Spence wasn’t as big a puncher as Golovkin, but apparently he was powerful enough for him to break Brook’s left eye socket with his punches. What does that tell you about Spence? It tells me that he might not have quit as much power as the bigger Golovkin, but he hits almost as hard as him. If the difference between the power of the two fighters is just a slight amount, then it really doesn’t matter much if GGG has a little more power. It’s like saying one car is slow because it only goes 200 mph instead of 210 mph. Spence obviously hits plenty hard for him to score knockouts.
