By Charles Brun: Kell Brook’s former trainer Dominic Ingle said he was disappointed at seeing him lose to WBO welterweight champion Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford by a fourth-round knockout last weekend in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Brook (39-3, 27 KOs) went with a different training team for the Crawford (37-0, 28 KOs) fight, and it didn’t pay off.
Ingle thinks that former IBF welterweight champion Brook didn’t have the right team around him to give him a decent shot at beating Crawford.
One reason Ingle believes that Brook lost was the drop in weight in going from 154 to 147, a division that Kell hadn’t fought in since 2017. Ingle thinks that the water weight that Brook lost in getting down to the 147-lb limit left him partially dehydrated, which affected his brain.
He believes that Crawford’s right-hand shot that hurt Brook was a weaker punch than what he’d been hit with by Gennadiy Golovkin and Errol Spence Jr.
But since Brook’s brain was partially dehydrated, he couldn’t take the shot the way he normally would have it he’d been at 154.
Brook needed the right team
“Going into that fight and doing it himself more or less. It doesn’t matter what people say,” said Ingle about Brook training himself for the Crawford fight. “For those types of fights, you’ve got to have the right team around you.
“It’s no good people pumping you up and telling you what you want to hear and calling you champ. That’s nothing. It’s always what’s happening in training camps.
“Look at the fights he had with Errol Spence and Gennadiy Golovkin. He only lost to the top guys, but he was always competitive in those fights. Last night, he looked good for two rounds.
“He looked sharp, and he didn’t really get hit. But you have to understand that Terence came in with his non-preferred style at orthodox, whether that was to throw Kell off.
“Imagine having the confidence to do that. He went in with Kell, and you go out in your non-favorable stance. Maybe that’s why Kell won the first two rounds. Crawford had the confidence to do that,” said Ingle.
It might not have mattered if Brook had Ingle with him for this fight, as the drop in weight would have still been a problem. In returning to the 147lb division after three years, Brook put himself in a position where he was vulnerable.
Ingle: Kell isn’t shot
“When he did switch to southpaw, it gave him more confidence,” Ingle said. “Look, Kell has fought plenty of southpaws, Errol [Spence] being one of the best, but he got caught with a shot that Kell usually catches other people with.
“He knocks a lot of people with the same shot. It’s a bit ironic, really. If you look at the slow-motion clip, he didn’t even blink and didn’t even move his head.
“The shot was well-timed, but Kell didn’t see it coming. How often do you see Kell stumble halfway across the ring to the ropes? If you look at the times he got caught by Golovkin and Senchenko, he caught the shot, buzzed a bit, and then righted himself and had a clear vision of the opponent in front of him.
“But last night, he kind of tucked up on the ropes and covered up and gave Crawford time to close him down again. For me, I don’t think Kell’s shot. It’s a case I’ve repeated time and time.
“When you’re losing weight, and Kell always got down to that weight, but when you start losing water from your muscles in your body, it starts taking it from your brain.
“It starts dehydrating your brain. You can’t really have that when you get older. So it doesn’t matter if you’ve made weight already.
“The recovery process of your body and making sure your brain is rehydrated again, maybe that can’t be done in 24 or 26 or 30 hours at an older age.
“When you’re younger, maybe so., and it has been done by Kell. When you’re boxing at 11 stone, [154 lbs] you’re not dehydrating your body and your brain that much,” Dominic said about Brook.
Well, you can argue that Brook is shot when it comes to fighting at 147.
Crawford’s punch not as powerful a Golovkin or Spence
“So he [Brook] got hit with a decent shot, a well-timed shot, but it’s nothing of the power of Golovkin or Errol Spence,” said Ingle. That was the beginning of the end for him.
“So I thought it was always going to be a risk for him going back down to 147. That’s why fighters move up as they get older. Kell has got a tremendous chin, so maybe he should have never got back down to 147?
“But the fights there, and he chanced his arm, and it’s not worked out for him.
“Yeah, you don’t often see Kell in that position. When he gets caught with a shot, even against Golovkin and Senchenko, he bounced himself to the ropes, got a clear vision.
“His head cleared instantly when he fell back, but there was none of that this time. There was no holding or grabbing or trying to be defensive or anything.
“He just turned and covered up and got hit with shots. It made it an easy job for Crawford, to be honest,” Ingle said.
There’s no way that Crawford can punch the way that Spence and Golovkin can. But with Crawford’s boxing skills, timing, and counter-punching ability, he doesn’t need to punch as hard as Golovkin or Spence.
Ingle disappointed seeing Brook lose
“It was disappointing to see him go out that way really because Kell has got a lot more than that,” said Ingle. “It’s a big ask getting back down to that weight [147].
“Kell has got a lot of determination. You can’t fault him for that. The training camps he did with me, he put everything in. He always put 100% in, but you can’t beat Father Time sometimes.
“We all think we can do what we did when we were 21, but the reality is, we can’t. The disappointing thing for me is I honestly believe Kell Brook was the best at 147.
“He would beat them all in his prime. But his career the setbacks, he had the accidents, the stabbing and all that kind of stuff. It takes a toll on your body, and that’s what set Kell back.
“Look at what Shawn Porter did after he got beat by Kell. He came back stronger, which Kell failed to do. It’s sad because I do think Kell has the beating of a lot of them. The dice didn’t fall for him,” said Ingle.
Brook was bound to lose to Crawford, given the years of inactivity and the fact that he was returning to 147. It was a longshot for Brook going into this fight, but it didn’t pay off.
Brook needs to return to the 154lb division and try and make the best of things there. Assuming that Brook will continue to face tune-up level opposition rather than contenders, he should retire.
It’s hard to say what the problem is for Brook in keeping him from taking on the top 154-pounders. If he’s going to continue to face lesser opposition at junior-middleweight, then retirement would be a good option.