Many have called for Kell Brook to retire, having suffered two career-threatening injuries in the span of eight months?
One day somebody will compile a list of the top ten pound-for-pound biggest whiners in boxing history. The eternally dissatisfied writers, quintessential nabobs of negativism, or the fans that turned misanthropy into an art need not apply. The list will be for boxers only, specifically those boxers who are psychologically unable or temperamentally disinclined to accept to defeat on its own terms.
All of us have our favorite whiners, some greats and ingrates as well. But whoever they are?and we won?t know until the list is made public?the name of Kell Brook, who lost his IBF welterweight title to Errol Spence Jr. Saturday night at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England, will be nowhere to be seen.
Brook proved for the second time in as many fights that not only is he one tough mother, perhaps a given in the sport of sports, but that he?s a class act who can take it like a man without complaining or offering lame excuses.
Although he was fighting someone his own weight in front of 27,000 hometown fans, Brook was up against a fantastic fighter who was just a tad more fantastic than himself. But it was less the fact that Brook lost the fight than how he lost the fight that has generated interest. Much like his September 2016 loss to Gennady Golovkin, the heavy-handed middleweight champion from Kazakhstan, the loss to Spence was also due to a fracture of the orbital bone, but this time it was his left eye instead of the right.
Still, no matter which eye it was, the bones of his face are breaking, and it is a worrying sign for his future in the ring.
?They kept me in until about 3 am,? said Brook about his post-fight treatment in the hospital. ?I had a CT scan on my eye and the eye is broken again, same as the Golovkin one, so, maybe surgery again.?
Not surprisingly, when the injury occurred in the seventh round, the fight ceased being fairly evenly matched. Spence took over at that point and Brook had to take a knee in round 10.
But there?s not an ounce of quit in ?Special K.? He continued to fight. He hoped to land a shot that would turn the tide in his favor.
That shot never came. Brook took another knee in the 11th and that was that.
?I?m devastated,? said Brook immediately after the bout. ?I knew from round seven that the eye had gone and progressively as the rounds went on. I tried to get through the fight and it kept going double vision and then coming back into line.
?In the later rounds 10 and 11, especially the 11th round, it stuck there and that?s why I went down on one knee and I remember the surgeon saying to me after the Golovkin fight if you would have gone another round or so you could be blind so I?ve got that going through my mind as well.?
That Brook performed as well as he did under the circumstances takes nothing from Spence?s victory. Both men are champions, even though the title changed hands.
?I?m in my own city, I?m in Sheffield. I wear my heart on my sleeve. There were many things going through my mind but I remember thinking I live to fight another day.
?If the eye hadn?t have gone I think the fight would have mapped out a little bit differently but it is what it is and I didn?t get the win.
?When you can?t see, there?s nothing you can do.?
Many have called for Brook to retire, having suffered two serious injuries in the span of eight months. But he has no intention of calling it quits.
?I couldn?t leave the sport like that,? he said. ?I need to get back in and get back to winning ways and show that I?ve got plenty more to give.?
Typically, some have accused Kell Brook of quitting.
One day somebody will compile a top ten pound-for-pound list for the likes of them.
