Kell Brook vs. Errol Spence deal reached for May 20 in Sheffield, UK

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By Scott Gilfoid: By Scott Gilfoid: The promoters for IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook and Errol Spence Jr. were able to reach a deal for a fight on May 20 in Brook’s hometown at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, UK. As such, the purse bid that was scheduled for this Tuesday, February 14, has been canceled.

This news might be a tad bit surprising to the boxing fans of both fighters, because there were doubts whether Brook would take the fight. He was expected to vacate his IBF title to avoid the fight.

It’s good that Brook has decided to take the fight with the unbeaten 26-year-old Spence (21-0, 18 KOs), because at least the fans know that he’s willing to take some serious risks against the talented fighters from his own weight division.

Bramall Lane is a large 32,000 seat football stadium. That means there will be a TON of Brook’s boxing fans that will be showing up to see the fight. I wouldn’t be surprised if the fight sells out. Spence is going to need to make sure that he doesn’t let the fight go to the scorecards.

In Brook’s last fight against unbeaten middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin last September, Brook was actually winning the fight at the time the fight was stopped. Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn brought that point up after the fight, and it was pretty shocking to me. I thought Golovkin was dominating Brook through five rounds. The scoring was very, very bizarre. The Golovkin-Brook fight took place in London, England. It’s like that with a lot of fights. The home fighters tend to win a lot of controversial decisions. The visiting fighters that do well are the ones that make sure that the judges don’t have a say so in the results of the fight. Spence might do well to make sure that the Brook fight doesn’t go to the scorecards, because he could end up like Shawn Porter, who lost a controversial decision to Brook in 2014.

Spence will probably need to chase Brook around the ring in order to land his power shots. Brook doesn’t like to stand and fight when facing big punchers despite him having excellent punching power. Personally, I think Brook would be better off standing and fighting Spence, because his power is comparable to his. But I don’t think Brook likes the idea of getting hit back. He prefers to land shots and then get out of harm’s way immediately by getting on his bike. That’s probably not going to work against a talent like Spence, because he’s very good at cutting off the ring and throwing punches to the body of his opponents.

If you’ve ever boxed before, you’ll know that it’s hard to run when you’re getting hit to the body at frequent intervals. The only time runners get away with constant movement is when they’re facing a head-hunter that doesn’t have the ability or the common sense to know that they need to throw body shots. Spence has a really powerful stabbing jab that he likes to throw when facing guys that run around the ring. If Brook decides that he wants to run from Spence, then he could wind up getting hit with a lot of spearing punches to the bread basket. The impact of those punches is going to ground Brook, and force him to stand and fight with Spence.

With three months to go before the Brook-Spence fight on May 20, Brook needs to start taking off some weight so that he can get down to the 147lb limit for the fight. In recent photos of Brook, he’s looked very heavy with a slight double-chin. Brook appears to be in the 180s from my estimation. That’s a lot of weight to take off in order to get to 147.

Brook should start trimming some of the fat off right now before he starts training camp. The last thing Brook needs is for him to use his training camp as a fat farm. If Brook was going to stand and fight Spence on May 20 instead of running, then I wouldn’t see the need to take off the weight being so important. But I think it’s pretty clear that Brook is going to use movement and a lot of clinching to try and stifle Spence’s ability to throw punches in this fight. That means that Brook needs to be in top shape, and he cannot afford to wait until training camp to start carving off the weight.