Britain’s Kell Brook valiant in bloody Golovkin defeat

ENGLISH boxer Kell Brook failed in his bid to dethrone fearsome middleweight world champion Gennady Golovkin but a courageous performance punctuated by some very good  moments will see the Sheffield native’s reputation enhanced in the eyes of many fans.

Brook was rising from the welterweight division, roughly a stone below the middleweight limit, to challenge the undefeated Kazakh puncher, whom nobody has lasted the distance with for more than eight years.

After some wobbly moments in the first as he tasted the power of a fully-fledged middleweight, Brook pushed forward to take the second rounds, stopping the preternaturally calm Golovkin in his tracks with a vicious uppercut.

In response the WBA/WBC/IBF/IBO champion found his range and tore into Brook in the following rounds, cutting off the ring and landing some telling blows. In the fifth Brook’s corner threw in the towel as their man took several unanswered body punches on the ropes. It later emerged that the 30-year-old had sustained a broken eye socket early in the bout and was seeing ‘five Golovkins’.   

Brook was a heavy underdog and the trouble he briefly caused Golovkin will be enough to protect and even enhance his reputation despite taking his first loss. Although still the IBF welterweight champion, Brook is big for the division and will probably campaign at light-middleweight where a lucrative bout with Amir Khan conqueror Saul Alvarez is a distinct possibility.