UNIFIED MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPION Gennady Golovkin thanked Kell Brook for indulging his desire for a crazy street fight at London’s O2 Arena.
Golovkin, who now has 33 stoppage wins in an unblemished 36-fight record, handed welterweight Brook his first professional loss over five brutal and thrilling rounds on the banks of the Thames last night.
The 34-year-old Kazakh superstar had his WBA and IBF belts on the line and hurt Brook with a shuddering left hook in the opening session before the 147-pound IBF ruler sensationally elected to fight fire with fire.
Ultimately, Golovkin’s fearsome punching power and suffocating ring generalship sapped Brook’s resistance and the challenger’s face was battered and bloodied when his corner threw in the towel after one minute and 57 seconds of the fifth.
Brook was unable to attend the post-fight news conference as he went to hospital with a suspected broken right eye socket, leaving Golovkin to hold court — marvelling at his vanquished boxing foe’s skill and bravery but stating the jump in weight was too big a gap for him to bridge.
“I don’t feel power. I feel very good speed and distance. Kell, he is a very good fighter,” said Golovkin, who himself wore the scars of battle after Brook scored frequently enough with precision hooks and uppercuts in centre ring.
“After the first round I feel like I was stronger a little bit. In the second round… I wanted not boxing. I’m crazy, I want a street fight as well as it being a dramatic show.
“I believe, I feel he is a very good fighter, but he is not middleweight division. Maybe he is strong, he looks good but not [against me in his] first [middleweight] fight. He needs time. I respect Kell and his team.
“I know I took too much punches [but] I don’t feel power, so I was like, ‘come on, come on, come on I want more!’ It’s crazy.”
Dominic Ingle, Brook’s long-serving trainer, drew the ire of a crowd engrossed in the spectacle for halting the action but Golovkin was in no doubt that it was the right call having seen his opponent flagging under his wrecking-ball fists.
“I think this was smart. I respect his corner and his coach. Seriously, in the last round he feels very bad,” he added. “He can’t breathe, he can’t move and he’s finished. It’s smart and I respect his corner.”
It’ll be a while before I watch boxing on Sky again. Absolute arse hole commentary to say the least. The way they were spouting out their holes you’d think Brook was the only man in there with talent. Fair play to him but they never once acknowledged GGG during the scrap. Unprofessional gimps.
Golovkin is unreal..
Didn’t know a lot about this fight but I saw the Ukraine lad at weigh in and he was yawning and scratching his head, pure cool and I was like he already looks like the winner
And which “Ukraine lad” was that? Golovkin is from Kazakhstan so yeah you are very right in saying you didn’t know much about this fight!
As I said I didn’t know much as I don’t have sky and wasn’t subjected to the apparent relentless barrage of hype
Golovkin is class, Brook certainly poked the beast, but ggg kept marching in like the terminator. And seems like a real sound skin too!
Brooks corner did a great job and stopped the bout at the right time. The cheerleading from adam smith, johnny nelson, carl froch and the rest of the sky commentators was nauseating and GGG was always going to win that bout as brooks was mismatched in my opinion. Eddie Hearn may be unpopular but he is a very very good salesman as the full house from the sky hype machine showed.
Fair play to brook he gave it everything and caught ggg a couple of times but I think he would have ran out of steam in the 7th or 8th so a smart decision by his corner to stop the fight.
Smart decision to say the least. One more round and brook wouldn’t fight again for a while. He got a few shots in, and good ones too but never hurt him. Sky were sayin GGG wasn’t enjoying the fight and brook had the better skills. Broken eye socket after 90 seconds but he had ‘all’ the skills.