Kell Brook shouldn't have taken a knee... he should have kept fighting until his face caved in, right?
Classic
On Saturday night 30,000 people witnessed what you get when two elite fighters do battle in their prime. A classic fight.
Evenly matched in skill and desire, Kell Brook and Errol Spence went toe-to-toe in a seesaw battle in Bramall Lane football stadium for the IBF welterweight title. Yet despite all the superlatives I could throw at the fight, the bout will be remembered by many for it's anti-climatical ending.
Broken eye
Somewhere between the 5th and 7th round Brook, suffered a fractured eye socket. In his previous fight, Gennady Golovkin had broken the eye socket in Brook's right eye. Spence he broke the left one. Brook fought on valiantly. I had the fight even going into the ninth. Then Spence started to pull away.
Hands can't hit, what eye's can't see
In 10th round, Spence launched a vicious assault to the left side of Brook's face and the Yorkshireman hit the canvas, for the first time in his career. Despite surviving the round and remarkably finishing the round strong, Brook was effectively spent. Midway through the eleventh round, Brook voluntarily took a knee. He mouthed to his corner that he could not see. The referee waved the fight off.
Errol Spence was the new IBF welterweight champion.
Knuckleheads
Many people watching the fight on PPV would have listened to commentators Tony Bellew, Amir Khan and Johnny Nelson's verdict. Instead of lauding a pulsating fight between two elite boxers, the focus was immediately on the manner of Brook's loss.
With Bellew in particular orchestrating a narrative that Brook quit the fight.
Bellew is an opinionated fighter that often 'says it how he sees it'. In the immediate aftermath of this fight, Bellew was bemoaning Kell for taking a knee. The usual macho rhetoric came out of his mouth. 'You cannot do that...' You cannot take a knee'... 'Kell quit.'
I find it ironic that Bellew who often bleats on before his fights that 'all that matters is he gets home safely to his wife and kids', apparently wasn't willing to afford Brook the same luxury.
No-one will be hurting more than Kell after the fight. However no matter what knuckleheads say, in the cold light of say, he did the right thing.
Reconstruction
Brook knows first hand what he was risking. Doctors told him could have gone blind if he continued against Golovkin. Brook also knows it is possible to have surgery to reconstruct his orbital bone and make it stronger than ever.
No-one's face is not designed to be hammered by some of the hardest punchers on the planet. Brook's face is clearly more susceptible to structural damage around the eyes than most. This wasn't just a swollen eye. This was damage to Brook's skull, that ran a serious risk to his eye-sight.
Having taken the knee, Brook can live to see and fight another day.
Courage under fire
In many ways it would have been easy to bite down on his gum shield, close his eye and risk it all for glory in hometown in front of 30,000 fanatic supporters. Brook showed he had that in his makeup (and then some) in the 10th round. He showed it the Golokvin fight. He showed his courage after coming back to boxing after being stabbed in the leg during a machete attack in Tenerife just after winning the world title.
However the bottom line is it's a prize fight and fighters are quickly forgotten.
After Brook's relatively short career is over only his family and close friends will have to live with the decisions he makes in the ring. The fans will move on and find new "heroes" to goad into battle.
I wish every fighter health first and fortune second for the risks they take to entertain. Everything else is window dressing.
Prawn sandwich brigade in the peanut gallery
There are many a brave man in the gallery.
Some of them, like Bellew, Khan and Nelson are fighters or former fighters.
However very few have ever faced the level of adversity Brook faced. Let alone the psychological effects of dealing with the same trauma twice on spin. Yes Paulie Malignaggi fought on with the same injury, when he fought Miguel Cotto. Just like Kell tried to fight on against Golovkin. However if you'd asked Malignaggi what he'd have done had it happened a second time, it might have been a different story. Once bitten twice shy. Not too long ago I was reading how former boxer Israel Vazquez is set to lose his right eye due to complications after surgery.
The risks are real.
I expect Brook to come back. I expect him to be stronger. However despite the bravado boxing is just a sport. And a dangerous one to boot. Brook stood toe-to-toe with two of the most vicious punchers of his generation. He held his own in both bouts until his face gave way. Yet for some it is never enough until someone is stretchered out on the floor. I guess that is the visceral natural of human beings sometimes. Hold others up to a standard that they themselves have no real comprehension of.
I for one, will praise both Brook and Spence for showing tremendous heart, grit and skill. The best faced the best on Saturday night and the fans won. Let's not denigrate a fight which laid on display the best that boxing had to offer, just because one of the contestants did not get laid out flat.
Great post. Brook is a warrior and the questioning of his toughness and manhood by many in the media and fight fans alike shows their ignorance. To be a fighter is not normal. 99% of the people in this world will do anything they can to avoid a fight, but fighters do it for a living. They look forward to it. They relish it. Think about that. It's takes a special kind of person to be a fighter, and to be able to rise to a championship level fighter, the mental makeup of that individual to overcome and adapt to extreme pressure and massively stressful situations is incredible. Brook was fighting in front of his people and desperately wanted to win this fight, so you know for him to take that knee he had to feel he was in serious danger. The earlier injury to Golovkin had to weigh heavy on his mind, as it would anyone, but the heart he showed in fighting on after the injury was nothing less than amazing. In his own words, he was "devastated" after the loss. The "mob mentality" is what I call the general public's attraction for watching combat sports. They want blood and gore. That's the way it was in antiquity with Rome and the Coliseum and it's that way today, it will never change, but I expect more from commentators and especially other boxers who step in on the media side to give their opinion of fights and other fighters. They should be educators, not feeding the fuel of the mob and tearing down other fighters.
Whether he is paid 1 mill or 100 mill he did the right thing imo, he has a strong chin and good stamina. If his eye socket hadn't given I think he could have won that fight even though he was behind, but as you say he get's to See and fight another day.
Personally I think GGG is holding back and hasn't shown his true power, he has probably taken flush punches (without effect) to pretend he has some weakness in his game.
I don't think any boxer holds back... as the saying goes "You don't get paid for overtime"!
Like he say's at every fight, he wants a "Big drama show", also his coach keeps reporting he doesn't use 100% power but of course this could just be scare tactics and promotion.
I reckon it's part of the image. Pretend every opponent is 'light work', pysche out future opponents. If he truly found middleweight easy, he'd test himself at super middle.
Health first, he is still young and he is a hell of a fighter!
He fought beautifully and gave everything he had in that ring so nothing but respect for him! Now it's time to take some time of, even a full year, and fully recuperate from the injury. He is not done, he has lot left to offer to this sport!
Bellew is so 2nd rate, the fact that he was lucky enough to have a big(ish) fight against another 2nd rate boxer was very lucky for him.
It is sad to hear fellow pros talk about Brook like that, the fact is he chose his sight, sanity and health against giving idiots like Bellew their pound of flesh.
Great analysis as ever Nanzo :-)
Cg
Didn't GGG bust that up in his last fight?
GGG broke his right eye... Spence broke his left.
Fortunately or unfortunately it was the other eye o_o
Boom
Carrying on for four rounds with a fractured eye socket isn't exactly giving up. That's incredible endurance.
Good writing. Loved the quote "Hands can't hit, what eye's can't see".
Reminds me of the Joshua and Klitchko fight, also a very good one, I don't normally watch boxing, but seeing the different fighting styles and how close the fights are is "interesting" in strategic terms, for instance Joshua was waaay more energetic and recovered faster, but Klitchko timed his punches and put a lot of force into them, hence he lost his window and couldn't recover. It was a close fight, but I can't imagine doing that for life. It's not a job and it shouldn't be entertainment, every week, people punching the bones out their faces.
It does however breed good qualities, discipline and consistency.