Kell Brook: Does he have anything left after 2 bad injuries?

By Boxing News - 12/23/2017 - Comments

Image: Kell Brook: Does he have anything left after 2 bad injuries?

By Tim Royner: Kell Brook will be trying to make some noise at 154 in moving up in weight for his next fight against Sergey Rabchenko on March 3 at the Sheffield Arena in Sheffield, England. After 2 bad eye injuries, a long 10-month layoff, the 31-uear-old Brook (36-2, 25 KOs) be moving up to junior middleweight to face the hard hitting #7 WBC Rabchenko (29-2, 22 KOs) in his next fight.

This could be unwelcome news for Brook. He’s had 2 broken eye sockets in his last 2 fights against middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin and Errol Spence Jr. Both of those fights had to be halted because of Brook’s eye injuries. Now he’s moving up in weight again to fight a guy with arguably more power than Spence. It seems like a move that wasn’t well thought out by Brook.

If Brook loses this fight against Rabchenko, it might be time for him to consider hanging up his gloves. A third eye injury would have to be viewed as the end of Brook’s career. I don’t see how Brook could continue to fight after yet another eye injury.

Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn says he was surprised that he chose to fight he Belarusian Rabchenko in his first fight back from his second eye surgery. Hearn says he wasn’t in favor of Brook fighting a guy with the kind of power that Rabchenko possesses. Brook feels he can win this fight, so perhaps he can. If Brook does defeat Rabchenko, he’ll be given a top 10 ranking at 154, which will put him the line of fire of the champions like Jermell Charlo, Jarrett Hurd, Sadam Ali and Erislandy Lara.

Brook and Hearn are interested in facing Sadam Ali for his WBO 154 lb. title. Ali is expected to fight Liam Smith next. Either way, Brook will probably look to face whoever wins that fight Brook matches up better against Liam Smith and Sadam Ali than he does against the other top fighters at 154 in Charlo, Hurd and Lara. Those guys are big, fast and talented.

With the eye injuries and the punishment, he’s taken against Golovkin and Spence, it’s hard to know how much Brook has left. The layoff that Brook has had for this fight is bad enough. That’s going to make it tough for Brook, because he had a similar long layoff after his loss to Golovkin last year in September. Suffering another broken eye socket is sad news for Brook.

The negatives for Brook are as follows:

• Coming off of a long layoff

• Another eye injury

• Moving up in weight to face a big puncher

• Self-confidence might not be what it needs to be going into the Rabchenko fight

• Facing a slugger at the top of his game

Rabchenko doesn’t have the same kind of boxing skills as Brook, as we saw in his losses to Tony Harrison and Anthony Mundine. Rabchenko’s best wins of his career have come against an over-the-hill Ryan Rhodes, Cedric Vitu and Bradley Pryce. Still, if Brook gets nailed on one of his eyes, he might fall apart again and wind up with another eye socket injury.