Kell Brook has walked onto the first big punch from Team Golovkin, 48 hours before he challenges the Kazakh KO king for the world middleweight championship.
The final media conference before Saturday night’s big fight at London’s O2 Arena began with more talk of how Brook, Sheffield’s also-undefeated world welterweight champion, has put on the pounds in readiness for confronting Gennady Golovkin.
All very scientifically, as attested by his trainer Dominic Ingle when he walked us through their consultations with the most modern doctors in sports medicine and all the input from some of the finest University brains in the land.
‘If anyone thinks Golovkin will have a size and weight advantage,’ said Ingle, ‘they are very mistaken. For a long time now it has been a struggle for Kell to get down to welterweight.
‘Now he is much stronger at middleweight. No-one is giving Kell a chance but I’m telling everyone, don’t write him off. He’s the underdog but he’s coming to win.
‘We have put on the pounds technically. Everything has been calculated. Kell’s size and muscle will come as a shock to Golovkin at the weigh-in.’
Then came the counter-punch, from the trainer of one of the leading candidates as the best pound-for-boxer on the planet.
The much respected Abel Sanchez said: ‘Kell Brook will brutally discover that it takes more than a 10-week scientific experiment to beat Triple G.’
It was the classic put-down, even though Brook hit back by saying: ‘I can’t wait to shock the world, to pull off the biggest upset ever by a British boxer, to take over from Golovkin as the best boxer in the world.’
At which Golovkin smiled and said: ‘Well, I’m not frightened. Actually I’m very happy in London. I like the beautiful people here. It’s a huge city and I love it. It is like my second home now.
‘I’m very comfortable here. I’m excited and I thank Kell for taking the fight and making sure he is ready. It should make this event a gift for boxing in the UK, for boxing all over the world?.and for me.’
Later Brook added: ?If this is an experiment it has taken a lot longer than ten weeks. It?s been a 20-week camp to finish. Well before that I was bursting at the seams at the 146 lb welterweight limit and just waiting for the opportunity to move up to 160.
?And unlike some of his opponents I won?t be beaten before we get in the ring by his aura as a big puncher, the way Mike Tyson used to terrify people.
?Golovkin is a human being, same as me. He?s got just two arms and two legs and he bleeds like the rest of us. I will be fighting another man, not his reputation.
?And don?t forget that I?m a world champion, too. I?m undefeated in more than 30 fights, same as him. And I?m younger.?
