Jermell Charlo: Spence will knockout Brook by 4th round

Boxingnews24.com

By Scott Gilfoid: WBC junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo is predicting a fast knockout victory for Errol “The Truth” Spence Jr. (21-0, 18 KOs) in his fight a little over a month from now against IBF welterweight champion Kell “Special K” Brook (36-1, 25 KOs) on May 27 at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England.

Charlo, 26, and Spence have reportedly been doing a lot of sparing with one another, so Charlo knows to some extent what it’s like to be inside the ring with Spence. Brook has only once in his career faced a big puncher like Spence with the pressure that he can bring, and that’s when he was blown apart by middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin last September.

Brook gave it a game effort for the first 4 rounds against Triple G, but he fell apart in the 5th round with his eye shattering from a big left hook. The fight had to be halted to save Brook from potentially serious injury. Spence has got Golovkin-like punching power, and he’s perhaps even better at pressuring his opponents due to his hand speed and youth. You can bet that Spence will be showing a sense of urgency to Brook out of there on May 27. He’s not going to want to leave him in there.

“With the way I’ve been sparring with Errol and the way he pressures, when he’s fresh, he’s a monster. So I think he’s going to knockout Kell within the 4th round, most definitely,” said Jermell Charlo in giving his prediction to Dontae’s Boxing Nation for the Brook-Spence fight on May 27.

It looks like Spence is training hard to push for a fast knockout of Brook in the first 4-5 rounds in this fight. It makes sense. We saw how Brook fell apart like an old car under the pressure from Triple G on September 10 last year. Brook wore down like an old motor that was trying to push a car uphill. He just didn’t have it in him. Golovkin put hands on Brook until eventually he stopped throwing punches entirely after getting hit with a right hand in the breadbasket in the 5th.

That tells me that Brook can’t handle getting hit to the body. That’s BAD news for Brook, because Spence is one of the best body punchers in all of boxing in my opinion. Spence and his trainer Derrick James obviously have seen Brook’s last fight against Golovkin and noted how he did well until he started getting hit hard with body shots in the 5th.

Where Spence and James will deviate from Golovkin’s game plan is they’re going to go after Brook’s body from the jump on May 27, making sure that he’ll be getting hit hard no matter how much running he does inside the ring. When a runner gets hit to the body, it causes him to slow down, because his midsection turns to rubber and their legs stop working. They didn’t feel so good getting hit over and over to the body.

If you look at Brook’s career, he hasn’t fought body punchers like Spence. He’s always fought head hunters, and he’s become very good at moving his head to avoid the shots thrown upstairs. Golovkin was really the first guy that targeted Brook’s body in his career, and he mostly waited util the 5th round before he unleashed his body attack.

What’s interesting is that Golovkin was able to stop Brook immediately once he started hitting him to the body. If Golovkin had went after Brook’s body in the 1st round instead of the 5th, I think he would have stopped him by the midpoint of round 1 last September. Brook just could not take the shots downstairs, could he? That’s why I think Charlo is right about Brook not lasting more than 4 rounds tops against Spence. Charlo obviously knows what it’s like to get hit to the body by Spence, and he sees Brook crumbling almost immediately.

We still have a little over 1 month to go before the big Brook-Spence fight, so there’s a lot Brook can do to prepare for the fight. What we’re not hearing about is Brook’s sparring sessions to get ready for the fight. Brook is going to need someone really good to get him ready for what he’s going to be dealing with when he gets inside the ring with Spence on the night. It’s fine that Brook has good boxing skills, but he’s going to need some major preparation to get ready for Spence.

Brook can’t just bring in someone like Liam Smith to spar with and think he’s going to do well against a talent like Spence. It doesn’t work that way. To get ready for Spence, Brook will need someone at least as good as him or better. I wish Brook a lot of luck trying to find someone of Spence’s caliber.

It’s going to be difficult for Spence to catch up to Brook to try and finish him off because he’s not going to stand in one place against him. Brook ran around the ring all night long in his last fight against Golovkin in their fight on September 10 last year. Brook wanted to make sure that Golovkin didn’t put hands on him.

Spence destroyed a very good fighter in Leonard Bundu in 6 rounds last August in his last fight. Bundu is someone that would give Brook all kinds of trouble if the two of them fought each other. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Bundu beat Brook. The two of them both have fought Frankie Gavin and beat him. Brook stopped Gavin in the 6th round in 2015. Bundu defeated Gavin by a 12 round split decision in 2014. Gavin was down in the 6th round from a body shot by Bundu. Gavin spit out his mouthpiece and wasn’t docked a point like he should have.

There’s no word who got the better of the sparring between Charlo and Spence. In looking at pictures of the two fighters standing side by side, Charlo looks huge in comparison. He looks a lot bigger than Spence despite him saying he walks around at 170. If Spence weights 170, then Charlo must be a lot heavier than that. Charlo looks like he’s at least 15 lbs. heavier than Spence.

Charlo (28-0, 13 KOs) defends his title this Saturday night against Charles Hatley (26-1-18 KOs) at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The fight will be televised on Showtime Championship Boxing. Charlo is expected to win the fight.