Kell Brook (36-0, 25 KOs) is going to have to find a way to keep unbeaten IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) off of him on September 10 in their important fight. Trainer John David Jackson, the trainer for Sergey Kovalev, wonders whether the smaller Brook will be able to come up with a game plan to keep Golovkin off of him for a full 12 rounds.
Jackson doubts that he can because of the size, strength and the pressure that Golovkin applies to his opponents. Jackson thinks that the size advantage that Golovkin will have in this fight will make it difficult for Kell. However, we learned on Wednesday that Triple G might not have a size advantage in this fight, because Brook outweighed him by 11 pounds in their 30-day weigh-in.
Brook came in at the maximum allowable weight of 176 for the World Boxing Council’s mandated weigh-in. It’s quite likely that Brook weighed even more than that because he probably drained down to get to the 176lb limit. If Brook is still in the 180s, which is what he started training camp at, then it’s going to put him under a heavy burden of having to cut 20 pounds of water weight the week of the fight. But it looks like Brook has been cutting huge amounts of weight for a while to get down to the 147lb limit for his welterweight fights, so he might be fine with dehydrating down to 160. It’s still not good though to be that heavy for the first time in a fight against the best fighter in the middleweight division in GGG.
“On paper, it’s a mismatch, a bigger fighter against a smaller fighter,” said Jackson to Fighthub.com in discussing the Golovkin vs. Brook fight. “Competitively, it’s probably a mismatch. Brook is a great fighter, but he’s not really well known. He’s jumping two weight classes to fight the strongest, probably the best middleweight in the world right now. Is he biting off more than he can chew? Provably, but I take my hat off to him for trying. Most welterweights in boxing come up short against middleweights, because they’re bigger fighters. In this case, you have a bigger fighter in Golovkin against a smaller fighter Brook. Can Brook win? We’ll find out that night. The odds say he won’t. I’m pretty much going to go with the odds. With his style, he’s probably going to have to be evasive and stick and move and try and keep Golovkin at arm’s length and see if he can outpoint him. I don’t think he’s going to be able to knockout Golovkin because he’s got a hell of a chin from what I’ve seen, but maybe he can out-box him. Can he keep Golovkin off him for 12 rounds? That’s going to be the biggest thing. Can he keep Golovkin off of him and neutralize Golovkin’s attack? Triple G is a strong, very strong middleweight. Brook hasn’t fought a middleweight yet. He’s going up two divisions. Is he biting off more than he can chew? On paper, you would say yes. In his heart, he would say no. I commend him for taking a shot and fighting for a middleweight title. I don’t see a victory, but he might prove me wrong,” said Jackson.
It’s going to be very difficult for the 30-year-old Brook to try and keep Golovkin off him for 12 rounds, especially with him gaining weight. If Brook comes into the fight even 10 pounds heavier, he’s going to be moving around the ring like a slug. It’ll be new weight that he’s put on, and when you’re not used to carrying 10 to 20 extra pounds, it slows you down. Brook was never considered fast on his feet to begin with. If you look at his fights at welterweight, he’s not fleet of foot. He used a little movement against the 5’7” Shawn Porter in their fight, but mostly he just held because Porter was able to close the distance on him each time. We already know that constant tying up doesn’t work against Golovkin, because he does things to negate that tactic by taking a half step back and nailing his opponents while they’re reaching for him to hold. Brook might get knocked out in the process of trying to hold Golovkin if he doesn’t limit the clinching he uses. But as far as movement goes in this fight, Brook is not going to be able to move enough to present any real problems for Golovkin.
In speaking about the comparisons between the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Amir Khan fight, Jackson said, “It could very well be like that fight. That was pretty much how I called that fight. Khan early on had a little success. When he started getting clipped, I knew it was going to end, because his chin let him down at junior welterweight and he was fighting a big boy. There’s no telling how much Canelo weighed after the weigh-in. He was just too big for Khan. I knew that was going to happen. This fight [Golovkin vs. Brook] might be the same thing here once Triple G starts landing those big bombs to the body and to the head. How much can Kell really take? He’s probably going to outweigh Kell after the weigh-in. It’s hard for a smaller man to keep a stronger, bigger man off of him. They [Team Brook] might see something no one else sees and might devise a plan to keep Triple G off him, but that’s going to be a tough task. We’ll have to wait and see. We’ll have to wait and see if he can survive the punches of Triple G,” said Jackson.
It won’t be able to size in this fight. Brook’s problems will derive from him fighting a guy with more power than he’s ever dealt with before. Brook has been fighting welterweights his entire career, and he’s going to be dealing with the best fighter in the 160lb division in Golovkin. Brook has fought only one good welterweight his entire career in Shawn Porter, and he really didn’t fight Porter. He mainly used the punch and grab technique to keep from getting hit. Against Golovkin, Brook is going to have to fight him, because he’s not going to be able to hold or run all night.
