Errol Spence Jr. (22-0, 19 KOs) wore down and stopped IBF welterweight champion Kell “Special K” Brook (36-2, 25 KOs) in the 11th round after Brook quit at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England. Brook was taking punishment in the 11th round when he suddenly took a knee and was counted out. After the fight, Brook blamed his defeat on his left eye. It was badly swollen.
Brook said that he had blurred vision. Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn claimed that his left eye socket was broken in the 7th. Just how Hearn would know that Brook’s eye socket was broken is unclear? Usually a broken eye socket is diagnosed with X-rays.
In round 10, Brook was battered with big power shots to the head from Spence until he took a knee to escape the vicious punishment. Brook barely survived a flurry of shots that came from Spence after he got back up. To Brook’s credit, he came back to land some nice shots in the final 30 seconds of the round. However, it was still clear that Spence was just too powerful for Brook to deal with.
In the 11th, Spence teed off on a still hurt Brook in hitting him with tremendous head and body shots. Brook tried a couple of clinches, but Spence nailed him hard to the midsection that made him let go. Spence then went after Brook in tagging him with shot after shot until he took a knee to escape the punishment. One big left hand in particular from Spence seemed to really hurt Brook. Moments before Brook quit, he was dabbing at his left eye in the same way that he did in his loss to Gennady Golovkin. At that point that it was clear that Brook was on the verge of quitting again. He had quit in the 5th round in his knockout loss to Gennady Golovkin last September when he suffered a broken right eye socket.
From what I could see, it looked like Spence wore down Brook with his power shots starting in the 8th. Things were kind of bleak for Spence going into the 8th. Brook was spoiling by clinching Spence 7 to 10 times per rounds, and that made it hard for the American talent to get his shots off. However, in the 8th, Spence started to go hard to the body, even when he was being held in a clinch.
“The layoff kind of hand me shaken,” said Spence in being critical of his own performance tonight. “He’s a tricky boxer. He can punch. I kind of gave myself a B-minus. This is a legacy building fight.”
Brook’s eye injury leaves a lot of questions about his boxing career. If Brook’s eyes can’t handle taking head shots, then it might be time for him to hang up his gloves. It’s one thing for Brook to have a right eye socket injury, but if he also suffered a left eye socket problem, then I don’t know if it’s a good idea for him to continue fighting.
Amir Khan was part of the Sky Sports broadcasting team tonight, and he said after the fight that he would be interested in fighting Brook if he can get a tune-up fight first. If Brook is going to be out of commission with his left eye problem, then it’s possible that Brook and Khan can fight. I don’t think it’s ideal for them to be fighting each other right now with Brook having been stopped in 2 consecutive fights.
Will the British boxing public want to see Brook and Khan fight each other with both guys having been stopped? I don’t know. If it’s on regular Sky Sports, then it’s possible that the fans would want to see the two of them fight. I just don’t think the boxing fans are going to want to pay to see Brook and Khan on Sky Box Office at this point.
If I was to point to anything that was the main reason for Spence winning, I’d have to say the body punching he was consistently doing throughout the fight. Spence was having a hard time landing punches to the head due to Brook’s clever head movement, but he was able to connect to the body of Brook and that really helped him work him over. Spence’s body attack began to heat up in the 8th round, as he started to wind up with both hands and throw really hard to the midsection of Brook. Heck, I don’t think Brook has ever fought anyone that attacked his midsection the way that Spence was doing tonight. Gennady Golovkin certainly didn’t go after Brook’s midsection the way that Spence did. Maybe if Golovkin had attacked Brook’s body earlier in their fight last September, he would have knocked him out sooner.
Spence was ahead on all 3 of the judges’ scorecards at the time of the stoppage in round 11. I had Brook ahead of Spence going into the 8th. Brook was outclassing Spence. It was surprising to me, because I thought Spence was a good boxer. Brook landing the better shots, and keeping Spence from throwing his own punches by strategically holding him. It wasn’t out of control holding from Brook like in his fight against Shawn Porter in 2014. Brook was mostly holding 8 or 9 times per round. It might not sound like a lot, but Brook was holding Spence at exactly the right movement to keep him from throwing his shots when he was looking to return fire after being hit. Brook was using the punch and grab technique to nullify Spence’s offense.
Brook’s left eye was really swollen by the 10th. It wasn’t that bad in the 8th, but two rounds later, eye was closing fast. Had Brook made it to the 12th, his left eye might have closed completely.
You can call this fight Kell Brook’s ‘no mas’ moment, as he quit on one knee in the 11th round after taking a series of hard shots in the round. Brook backed up to the ropes, and as soon as the referee motioned to the two fighters com engage, Brook a knee and stayed down for the full 10 count. It was sad to see Brook taking knees not once but twice in the final 2 rounds tonight. Brook dropped to a knee in the 10th, and then a round later, he dropped to a knee in the 11th.
When Brook started to dab at his eye in the 11th, I knew right then and there that he was about to quit. Moments later, Spence hit Brook with a right hook directly on his injured left eye. Brook took the shot, but it seemed to take the fight completely out of him.
At the start of round 11, Brook landed a beautiful right hand to the head of Spence. It was a jarring shot that would have knocked out a lot of fighters in the welterweight division. Spence took the shot, and came back with vengeance in nailing Brook with big body and head shots. The punches to the body were the ones that took the fight out of Brook He wasn’t ready to take such hard body shots at that point of the fight. Brook tried to clinch, which he had done plenty of times earlier in the fight, but Spence smashed him with body shots while he was being held. Brook then let go and scurried away. Spence followed after Brook, pelting him with punches to the body and head. Some of the punches Spence threw in round 11 missed badly, but the ones that did land really hurt Brook.
“It was a hard fight. I got thumbed in the eye in the 7th round,” said Brook. “It felt like the Golovkin fight. He caught me in the eye in the last round and I had double vision. I wanted to get through the fight, but my eye was hurt,” said Brook.
”He broke his eye socket in the 7th round and he couldn’t see,” said Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn after the fight. ”He didn’t want to quit. I believe he should move to 154. He’s a true warrior,” said Hearn.Brook says he thinks he can still make 147. However, if Brook is going to keep suffering eye injuries now to different eyes, it might not matter which division he fights in. In fairness to Brook, Spence is a Golovkin-type puncher, and I suspected that Spence would break him apart in a similar manner and I was right. What can I say?
Brook was asked after the fight if he’d like a rematch with Spence, and he wasn’t ready to answer that question. Brook says he wants to talk his promoter Eddie Hearn about his next move. I think it would be a bad idea for Brook to fight Spence again, and he likely knows that. Spence is too much like Golovkin for Brook to be fighting him ever again. Brook would do much better if he could fight someone like Amir Khan. That’s a winnable fight for Brook as long as he doesn’t have any additional eye injuries.
The victory for Spence gives him the IBF welterweight title. Spence said after the fight that he wants to fight Keith Thurman or Manny Pacquiao in a unification match.
Spence was very calm and cool throughout tonight’s fight. Spence used his boxing skills and his cool demeanor to deal with Brook when he was getting the better of him in the earlier rounds. The pro-Brook crowd was motivating him at times when he would land big shots to the head of Spence, but it didn’t unnerve the American. He stayed composed and continued to pressure Brook.
Spence made it a point to attack Brook’s body from the 1st round. It didn’t look like the body shots were having any effect on Brook until the 8th round, when he started to show signs of gassing out. We don’t really know if Brook gassed out because of the body shots or due the weight loss that he had to endure in getting down from the 180s to make weight at 147. Spence’s best weak in the first 4 rounds was his jab. He was catching Brook with his jab repeatedly in the first quarter of the fight. I still gave Brook 3 of the first 4 rounds because he was landing the better power shots, and he was tying Spence up and keeping him from getting his shots off.