THE TRUTH WILL OUT
Elliot Worsell sets the scene for the marvellous showdown between Kell Brook and Errol Spence Jnr
THIS IS THE SORT OF THING CHAMPIONS AND NUMBER ONE CHALLENGERS USED TO DO. CRAZY AS IT SOUNDS, THEY USED TO FIGHT”
THAT nobody ever expected Kell Brook, the IBF welterweight champion, and Errol Spence Jnr, his number one challenger, to fight each other tells us a number of things about boxing and its tendencies. It tells us, first of all, how pointless world titles and number one contender spots are today and reminds us of the fact there’s no guarantee a champion, the supposed best fighter in the world, will defend their belt against the next in line, nor any guarantee the next in line, having worked hard to arrive in that position, will get their shot at gold. It tells us, also, how expectations of Brook have been lowered to such an extent that many now view him – perhaps unfairly – as a champion with an aversion to welterweight challenges. Finally, the doubts surrounding Brook and Spence ever getting it on tell us how accustomed we are nowadays to not getting what we want, nay, deserve.
That the fight now takes place, however – this Saturday night (May 27) at a sold-out Bramall Lane – tells us a number of things, too. It tells us we were wrong to ever doubt, first and foremost. So, sorry for that. It tells us just how important pay-per-view is to the future of British boxing (spoiler alert: if you want excellence, you’ll pay for it). And it tells us, above all else, that the best fighters in the world will, if they are promised enough money, still willingly fight each other.
It’s funny, so predisposed are we to seeing fights like Brook-spence not come off, when we find ourselves proven wrong and delivered the very thing we said wouldn’t materialise, we tend to treat it like the return of an abducted child. Open arms, tears streaming down our face, a look of total disbelief, we call it a miracle, like it wasn’t ours in the first place, and then proceed to thank all and sundry, including the kidnapper, for this great gift.
There can be no doubt Brook-spence is a tremendous fight – as engrossing as any this year, in fact – but it’s also a fight that should be the rule not the exception and, in a sense, viewed as such. There’s no need to fawn; the two, bankrolled by pay-per-view, are no doubt being handsomely rewarded. Nor is there any real need to act surprised. Yes, we’ve had a hard time of it in the modern era, but, let’s face it, this is the sort of thing champions and number one challengers used to do. Crazy as it sounds, they used to fight.
These two, Brook and Spence, will be no different. They can and will fight. We know that much. Overflowing with talent and athleticism, they both operate in a way that is smooth and pleasing on the eye and will do so on Saturday night with the kind of hunger and intensity only generated when the best fight the best on a level playing field. We’re not talking catchweight here. This is no handicap match. Instead, what we have on offer is a welterweight champion defending his title against a welterweight contender. Just the way it’s supposed to be.
Speaking of which, the last time we saw Kell Brook in a boxing ring he didn’t even look like Kell Brook. He was heavier
than normal, his feet were slower and his face was deformed on account of a broken orbital bone. As for the culprit, a pay-per-view opening, which required him ill-advisedly moving up to middleweight, was to blame for some of that, while Gennady Golovkin, his opponent, was to blame for the rest.
Suckers for the hype, we told ourselves beforehand Brook might have a chance – being the faster, slicker man and all – but then had to balance that against the reason he took the fight, ostensibly to get rich quick, and the belief he would likely struggle to defeat a 147lb version of Golovkin, much less one weighing north of 160lbs on fight night. The only surprise, in retrospect, was that brave Brook lasted as long as he did – the fifth round – and in that time landed some eye-catching punches on Golovkin, marking him up, buckling his knees on one occasion, and didn’t crumble the moment the Kazakh so much as grazed him with a glove.
Still, in the context of Brook’s career, the Golovkin fight signifies less of a blemish or setback and more of an experiment gone wrong. It was an opportunity few would turn down and even fewer would expect to win. Indeed, the speed with which Brook’s trainer, Dominic Ingle, waved the white towel in round five told us all we needed to know in that regard. It shone a light not only on Ingle’s compassion, but also the reality of the situation. This wasn’t a do-somethingwrong-and-fix-it kind of fight. This was a do-something-wrongand-i’m-lobbing-atowel kind of fight. Hope rather than conviction followed Brook to the ring last September.
It’s different at welterweight, of course. There, in his natural habitat, Brook isn’t just big for the weight, he’s also one of the very best in the world, a man whose win over Shawn Porter in 2014 was as good a win as any British boxer has managed in the USA for years, a win so good it inadvertently served to pooh-pooh a lot of what Brook has done since; subsequent IBF title defences revealed only that Brook is a level above the likes of Frankie Gavin, Jo Jo Dan and Kevin Bizier and that he’s pretty damn effective against southpaws. Tell us something we don’t know. “I’m the southpaw slayer,” he even told Spence at their initial press conference
THE GOLOVKIN FIGHT SIGNIFIES LESS OF A SETBACK AND MORE OF AN EXPERIMENT GONE WRONG”
in March. “No southpaw has ever gone the distance with me.”
Spence raised barely an eyebrow, for he knows what we know. He knows Brook may have a knack of defeating southpaws but is yet to fight, let alone beat, a lefty remotely close to him in terms of style or pedigree. Regardless of the positioning of hands and feet, Spence is in a different league to anyone who has soaked up right hand leads from Brook throughout his 13-year pro career.
“You’ve only fought two fighters since you’ve been pro – Shawn Porter and Gennady Golovkin,” said the American. “You’re a clown. You had two good rounds with Golovkin and you are living off that. I’m going to knock you out and take that belt.”
What separates Spence from the others, I suppose, are two things: talent and momentum. He has both in abundance. The talent is on display each and every time he steps in the ring and fluidly rattles through his repertoire of punches on the faces and bodies of admittedly overmatched foes; shoeshining with style, you might call it, only with a spite that gets straight to the point. The momentum, meanwhile, is the by-product of a groundswell of people who think he might be something special. Not Kell Brook special, you see, but something more than that. Extra special. There are many, many people who believe this, in fact, some of whom have to remind themselves Spence’s best win is a toss-up between Leonard Bundu and Chris Algieri if only to simmer their hysteria.
But here’s what is genuinely exciting: Errol Spence is doing with his career what everybody hoped Kell Brook, a man of perhaps equal talent, would do with his. He’s placing faith in his skills and, rather than stalling and then festering, is taking risks early. This, lest we forget, is just his 22nd fight. He’s been a pro less than five years. He’s yet to go 12 rounds.
“I’m coming here to take the title,” he said. “I feel like I’m a better fighter than him and a true champion wants to take the title from a true champion, not a vacated title. I want to beat the champion to become the champion.”
Long Island-born Spence, 21-0 (18), isn’t even a champion and he’s speaking the way we want champions to speak. Better yet, he’s taking the kind of gamble we want champions to take. It’s why most speak so highly of him. Confidence, after all, tends to be contagious. If we didn’t believe Spence was the real deal before, the fact a 27-year-old with limited pro experience has decided to venture to Sheffield, his opponent’s backyard, in order to go and claim a belt he believes is already within reach is all the convincing we need.
Credit, too, should go to Brook, 36-1 (25). Not so much for accepting the fight – that, as we’ve established, is his job – but more for wanting it enough, at 31, having met his sugar daddy in Golovkin, to get his considerable frame back down to welterweight and either work his notice or, who knows, prove he’s the best 147lb fighter on the planet.
“There was no vacating for me,” he said. “Spence has never fought an animal like me who is determined to be great and unify this division. I know what I need to do. We are going to see how brilliant he supposedly is.”
Just as Brook hoped Golovkin didn’t hit as hard as they said he did, he now hopes Spence isn’t as good as they say he is. Before finding out, he’ll tell himself it’s mostly words and hype at this point, which it is, and take comfort from having gone 12 rounds four times and having a stellar record against southpaws. Moreover, if you make clear the distinction between welterweight Brook and middleweight Brook, it’s tough to find many flaws. Freakishly strong at the weight, certainly strong enough to make a frustrated infant of Shawn Porter, the Sheffield man also has humbling power and a stiff, controlling jab that can tame even the sprightliest of challengers. It’s a reducer, a calm-the-heckdown type of jab, one Spence has yet to face in a career consisting of opponents overwhelmed by his speed and dizzying combinations. Stick a solid jab in his face, Kell might think, and the whole thing slows down. The feet, the hands, the hype train. And he could well be right.
It’s Spence, though, who truly fascinates and excites. Four-and-a-half years in, ready to take on the world, even his mildly grating social media catchphrase – ‘strap season’ – carries with it a suggestion he’s going to stick around and do things the right way, the old-fashioned way, and dabble in the dying, unfashionable art of taking risks, facing champions, collecting belts and justifying his hype not with words but actions. Furthermore, so rare and refreshing is it to see a boxer’s team cut the apron strings and allow their cash cow to run amok, without any hint of caution or concern, you start to wonder why. Do they know something we don’t? About Spence? About Brook?
American Jeff Lacy, some will argue, had a similar aura and misguided sense of invincibility before his 2006 drubbing at the hands of Joe Calzaghe, which is certainly true. Yet the major concern for Kell Brook is that Errol Spence ends up having more in common with Terence Crawford, that other inexperienced, unproven and hard-to-read American who whitewashed Ricky Burns in 2014, and turns out to be everything everyone says he is.
That’s the truth.