Kell Brook - My Thoughts

[jamiedavies02]

1. Clearly has the talent to box, as proved by the first 6 rounds last night.

2. Stamina is an issue when asked to do 12 hard rounds, as proved by the last 5-6 rounds last night. Yes he's done 12 rounds before but its fair too say in those fights he's had things all his own way

3. His power is over-rated at world level. I was in the crowd last night and I didn't think he had Jones in any serious trouble at any point and on the few occasions when he did have him wobbled he was too tired to capitalise. (I've yet to watch the fight back yet though so reserve the right to change this opinion.) His 3 fights against fighters with decent(ish) names on their record- N'dou, Hatton and Jones have all gone the distance.

4. He has heart and can dig deep, i think last night showed that.

5. He can't sell tickets. I would say the arena was at the most 3/5s full last night, the 1/3 of the upper most tier was completely tapererd off and their where empty seats throughout. (The arena was full for the Hatton fight - So what does this say about Hattons ability to sell tickets?)

[TJ77]

Do you honestly believe Matthew Hatton fans filled the arena ?
It is summer time lots of men who would normally go to shows are on or saving for holidays stag doo's etc
Kell has lots of work to do he has admitted to struggling to make the weight and was struggling to breath
after getting his nose broke.Having come through a tough fight with those factors and get the win over a decent
opponent who was ranked higher he will know understand what he needs to do.

[jamiedavies02]

Im not saying that they were all Hatton fans but there must have been a massive drop in attendance from the last fight.

[hoot]

Do you honestly believe Matthew Hatton fans filled the arena ?
It is summer time lots of men who would normally go to shows are on or saving for holidays stag doo's etc
Kell has lots of work to do he has admitted to struggling to make the weight and was struggling to breath
after getting his nose broke.Having come through a tough fight with those factors and get the win over a decent
opponent who was ranked higher he will know understand what he needs to do.

Spot on 100 %

[mickey1975]

I posted ages ago the attendance would drop dramatically from the Hatton bout. There wasnt even any Tweets from Eddie claiming they had done 5,000 in twenty minutes on the first day...

[TheCobra]

The Hatton name sells tickets, definitely, even though most of them probably came to see Brook, it was a decent Yorkshire vs Manchester scrap and Hatton has a real profile of his own having fought Alvarez and having a famous brother. Carson Jones... well, to the average fan (even me), who the hell is he really? Decent record in US yep, but in terms of actual profile in this country and on a world stage - zilch.

As for Brook himself, his power has DEFINITELY been massively over-rated, how many times can we watch the KO of Kevin McIntyre for god's sake - the guy's a postman not even a full time boxer. Frankie Gavin KO-d McIntyre in 3 rounds and he hasn't got much KO power. Brook hasn't looked like KO-ing anyone with a half-decent chin, he troubled Hatton at times but never looked like finishing it.

My overall thoughts of Brook are that he's a decent boxer but that's about it, a lot easier to hit than he should be as well for his style. Definite stamina issues, until he can add stamina and better power to what he does, then I don't think he will trouble anyone of the beltholders at world level.

[CiganoBoxer]

Like i said on another thread i am sick of hearing from the Sky Sports hype team that Kell is the new Naz , wish they would GTFOH with that ,this may be harsh but i couldn't help from thinking when watching him fight last night that he couldn't carry Naseems gym bag , i will tell you something else he dont punch as hard as what has been made out ether .
IMHO he special K ent that Special . :(

[Emmseegee]

I still like Brook as a fighter, not getting too excited about all the "thats the test he needed" nonsense though.
All i will say is that Brook looked average at times last night but also at other times he looked world class.

Some people are already writing him off but lets be honest, until last night he had hardly stepped a foot wrong and even last night he found a way to win. Compare this "scare" to that of Hatton, Khan earlier in their careers. Hatton struggled at times, picked up cuts, battled victories. Khan was lucky on several occasions against opponents with half of the ability that Jones had.

Although I aint claiming that Brook is gonna be "Special", compare him to fighters who have went on to do well and I think there is more ammo to claim that he is special than there is to say that he isn't.

The match making is gonna be critical.

[bigB]

It wasn't going to sell as much as war of the roses and the Hutton name did help the sales of tickets, no casual fan will have ever heard of Carson Jones so that may put them off also.

There was 5000-6000 thousand there last night, what I like is like other shows in the past that Matchroom don't go flyering £30 tickets in busy areas before the show to get it to capacity.

Learning fight for all for me.

[Newport Daz]

I have to be honest, rather than be the "New Naz" he seems more to be the "New Junior Witter" to me. Capable of being sensational for 6 rounds then running out of steam. Last night's fight reminded me of Witter Vs Kotelnik and Ndlovu(spelling?), fantastic for 6 rounds then holding on by the skin of your teeth for the win. I am perhaps being a little harsh in that Junior Witter was a very successful boxer who became a world champion, but I think unless Brook sorts himself out he's not going to do that much. People say he needed learning fights etc, but let's be honest, that was his 28th fight, hardly a novice.

[jamiedavies02]

On the subject of Junior Witter, any reason why he was at the Fury fight last night as opposed to Brook?

[Bennyblanco]

On the subject of Junior Witter, any reason why he was at the Fury fight last night as opposed to Brook?

Because Hennessy is his promoter

[Adamj1987]

On the subject of Junior Witter, any reason why he was at the Fury fight last night as opposed to Brook?

same promoter as fury

[Adamj1987]

I posted ages ago the attendance would drop dramatically from the Hatton bout. There wasnt even any Tweets from Eddie claiming they had done 5,000 in twenty minutes on the first day...

it was mostly empty at the top of the arena

[Bennyblanco]

Another observation on brook was that when he landed a flurry of punches in the first half of the fight he seemed to step back and take a breather. I'm sure if he'd of carried on like froch did with bute he could of took jones in to the deep

[safeerah]

On the subject of Junior Witter, any reason why he was at the Fury fight last night as opposed to Brook?

I don't think they like each other very much, at the prizefighter where Witter reached the final, he commented that he hit much harder then Brook, while Brook was in the Commentators box, Brook then slated Witter for his performance in the final against El Maachi, I think there is a bit of rivalry between them.

[safeerah]

Many other fighters would have been stopped in similar circumstances with a broken nose, disrupted breathing and tiredness, so I think Kel Brook answered a lot of questions and showed other qualities on the night eg Heart, chin and bravery.

[palooka]

Another observation on brook was that when he landed a flurry of punches in the first half of the fight he seemed to step back and take a breather. I'm sure if he'd of carried on like froch did with bute he could of took jones in to the deep

I think you're right benny; Kell took a big breath after a flurry in the 3 round; maybe the ccasion got to him and he was stressed and tight?

[TheCobra]

Many other fighters would have been stopped in similar circumstances with a broken nose, disrupted breathing and tiredness, so I think Kel Brook answered a lot of questions and showed other qualities on the night eg Heart, chin and bravery.

Yep, he's definitely ticked a few boxes and that is the one plus to take from the fight.

The negative is that he had to dig so deep against a guy with 8 losses who isn't really at world level, when so much has been expected of Kell and the hype has been built up so much.

So heart and guts = great, he definitely has them, but in reality I think we saw Kell Brook slightly exposed last night as a bit of a hype job, lots and lots of work to be done if he's gona become a world champ.

[roy]

IMO the only thing he lacks is stamina. Hopefully last night will be the warning to him that he needs to improve his fitness to operate at top world level.
Credit also needs to be given to Carson Jones; who turned out to be much tougher than most people expected.

[sendo]

I'm not convinced about simply lacking stamina, for me right from round 1 he was spending an enormous amount of energy backing off Jones and trying to deter him with power shots. He ran out of steam because he didn't have the strength to push Jones back with single shots or the defensive skills to evade or block punches without skipping around the ring. Was only a matter of time until Jones caught up with him and going to the body sucked the energy out of Brook even more, broken nose couldn't have helped either :p

So yeah maybe he could do some better fitness work but I don't see that solving the fundamental issues he will have at this level and particularly against solid aggressive fighters like Jones.

[Glyn Leach]

As an FYI, apparently the viewing figure on Sky was higher than it was for the Hatton fight, which surprised everyone I think. And the Hatton fight, as you probably know, drew a very big viewing audience by Sky's standards, 400,000 plus.

[whiskey]

Carson Jones is very tough and can really punch hard. He has 24ko from 34 wins. Add to that he had fantastic conditioning and stamina.

The stoppage to Alfonso Gomez at light-middle was when he was 19 years old - and it was a weak referee stoppage in the last round.

I think people are being extra-critical because they were expected to patsy to be demolished, like so many Bunny opponents for Calzaghe & Hatton of old - but this guy is a contender.

Glen Johnson is in the same mold as Jones, and he has 16 losses. If you'd never ever seen him, you'd laugh if he was made an opponent for Groves or Degale - but we know what he can do. He can flatten you if you gas on him.

[Crazyboy]

I think some people are being a bit harsh, yes its his 28th fight but his opponents are getting better and better all the time and for half of this particular fight he had a broken nose which he couldn't breathe through,

YES he needs work on stamina etc, but he admitted that after himself so they will look at that.

he showed in the first 4-5 rounds that he has great skills, he just needs to show that killer instinct and maybe he learnt a lot from it.

I think he still has the potential to be a very very good boxer, time will tell i suppose.

[whiskey]

Exactly,

These kind of fights happen every year. Hatton vs Urango, Dawson vs Johnson I etc. Where one fighter of superior ability gets dragged into a tough-man contest when stamina becomes an issue.