Brook rates Spence only third best at 147

Boxingnews24.com

By Scott Gilfoid: At Tuesday’s media conference call, a very confident sounding IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (36-1, 25 KOs) said that he rates himself as the number one fighter at 147, Keith Thurman at number 2 and Errol Spence Jr. at number 3. Brook and Spence will be fighting on May 27 at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England. This is the moment of truth for Brook, who hasn’t fought a welterweight with the talent that Spence has during his career.

(Photo credit: Lawrence Lustig/Matchroom Sport)

The best fighter that Brook has fought up to this point at welterweight was Shawn Porter, who he beat by an UGLY clinch-filled fight 2 years ago. Many boxing fans thought Brook was given a gift decision over Porter. I saw the fight and I had Porter winning easily.

Brook went on to say that he’s an “animal” and that Spence has never fought anyone like him before in his career. Brook talked about his many title defenses since he won his IBF title over Shawn Porter. Brook hasn’t actually defended the IBF belt that many times. He’s defended it three times against very beatable in Kevin Bizier, Jo Jo Dan and Frankie Gavin. You can argue that those were the equivalent of stay busy fights for Brook. Oddly enough, the International Boxing Federation rated Bizer and Jo Jo Dan at No.1 in their ratings. Shawn Porter was removed from the IBF’s top 15 ranking after he lost a close 12 round majority decision to Brook in 2014.

“I think the second best has to be Keith Thurman. I think Errol is maybe next below Thurman,” said Brook in giving his 2 cents in his views of who the best fighters are at 147. I just don’t think it’s his turn yet. Specially up against someone like me. I’m an animal. I’ve done the weight right and like I said, I’m ready for whatever Errol brings,” said Brook.

Look at how highly Brook rates himself after beating mostly mediocre welterweights during his career. This is what I was afraid of. Brook needs to see things in a more grounded manner and understand that his resume is based largely on wins over fluff opposition. The only good fighter that Brook has fought at 147 is Shawn Porter, and that victory was very questionable due to the excessive clinching that Brook used. The referee should have stepped in by the 6th round and disqualified Brook for his holding, because it was the main feature of his game on that night.

If the main thing a fighter is doing to get edge is cheating, then the fighter should be disqualified and/or penalized until they start fighting in a fair manner. There are rules against excessive holding. Brook got away with breaking the rules because the referee working the Porter fight didn’t do his job to keep Brook from holding nonstop. In looking at the Brook-Porter fight earlier today, I still can’t believe the referee let Brook get away with so much holding without taking off at least 3 points. I thought Brook should have been disqualified because he changed the outcome of the fight by grabbing Porter so frequently. I still think Brook lost the fight by 9 rounds to 3. Porter was lighting Brook up in close before Brook could get his arms around him to hold.

“The thing is that he’s up against me and I know what it takes to be champion. I’ve defended it so many times,” said Brook.
Brook has defended his IBF title only 3 times. I don’t know where Brook is coming from in saying that he’s “defended it so many times.”

Making 3 title defenses is really nothing for Brook. If a champion has defended their title 10 or more times, then that’s a lot of defenses nowadays. But for Brook to be saying he’s made a ton of defenses after defending his IBF title just 3 times, that’s dream stuff. Brook hasn’t been an especially active champion in the 3 years he’s been the IBF strap holder due to injuries and because of his decision to move up to middleweight to challenge IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC 160 pound champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin for his title on September 10 last year at the O2 Arena in London, England.

What’s unclear is why the IBF let Brook keep his IBF welterweight title during the time that he moved up to challenger Golovkin at middleweight. I don’t think that was fair to the contenders in the IBF’s top 15 at welterweight to have Brook moving up to middleweight and freezing his IBF 147 pound title while doing so. I think if a champion is going to go fight in another division in order to get a payday or branch out to try win more belts, they should be stripped of their title. If this was the NFL, a team couldn’t just decide to freeze league play so that they could go destroy an Arena Football League team for the fun of it. Boxing needs to get it’s act together starting the lenient sanctioning bodies. The way it’s setup now, the champions have it made with them being able to freeze their title while they go after titles outside of the division they’re fighting in. The contenders get a raw deal in my opinion, because they’ve got to wait.

“Everybody wanted me to move up because they know that I’m a happier and a better fighter at a slightly heavier weight,” said Brook. ”I just didn’t want to move up in weight without defending my world title.”

As far as I can tell, the person that really wanted Brook to give up his IBF title and move up to 154 was his own promoter Eddie Hearn. He wanted Brook to move up because he thought it would be difficult for him to make 147 after he bulked up to fight Golovkin at 160. Hearn was considered that Brook might struggle with the weight in draining to get back down to 147. I think Hearn could be right. In looking at the photos of Brook training this week, he looks very stringy and thin. Brook does not look powerful. Brook looks the way a body builder looks when he’s cutting up in the final weeks before a contest.

I don’t think Brook is going to be strong at all for the Spence fight. Brook might make the weight for the fight, but I think he’s going to be too weak to put up a fight. What’s shocking is that Brook says he still weight to lose to get down to the 147-pound limit. Brook has 6 pounds to lose. I don’t know where that weight is going to come from because he has very little body fat at this point. From this point on, the only thing I can see Brook losing is muscle or water weight. That’s bad news for Brook if he loses muscle, because he looks like he’s already lost a lot of muscle as it is in getting down to 153.

I hope that Brook fights clean fight on May 27 because it would be a pity if he chooses to start holding Spence repeatedly like we saw in his contest with Porter.