By Jimmy Tobin-
Saturday night, undefeated American, Errol “The Truth’ Spence, meets the UK’s, Kell “Special K” Brook at the Bramall Lane Football Ground in Sheffield, England for Brook’s welterweight trinket. Should it meet expectations, the fight will be excellent, and should it reflect the stakes, will distinguish itself in what has been and should continue to be, a memorable year. Keith Thurman-Danny Garcia this is not.
Those expectations are born mostly of Spence, the undefeated southpaw and rarest of PBC fighters: one who is almost universally liked, and liked exclusively for what he does with his fists. He does not don an absurd mask, bark incoherent nonsense into the camera, post lewd videos on social media—there are none of the cheap tricks that make celebrities of the talentless or characters (caricatures?) of the dull about Spence. And the list of his PBC stablemates who, on more than a prayer, are willing to travel overseas to try and lift a title in a champion’s backyard begins and ends with him. In short, Spence does not have to be sold or made interesting; and it is perhaps indicative of the PBC’s struggles that they thought anything but fighters behaving as fighters would produce success.
If there are questions about Spence he owes them to matchmaking typical of his stable. None of his opponents will have prepared him for what awaits in Sheffield, but what he has done to that competition speaks to a potential that feels trustworthy. While too much was made of him being the first fighter to stop fighter/nutritionist, Chris Algieri—who should have been saved from Manny Pacquiao before the final bell—that five round wipeout was tantalizingly brutal. Algieri figured to have the legs and toughness to survive a little even if outclassed. He was battered to a heap. A similar fate awaited Leonard Bundu, who, like a growing number of his fraternity, was durable enough to go the distance with Keith Thurman, but who Spence left gasping, draped halfway out of the ring in the sixth round. So while his competition is unremarkable, Spence treats it as he should; and he has ruined his stiffest competition on the biggest stages he’s graced. There is this about Spence too, then: he understands his obligation to the moment.
It is fair to wonder what a more aggressive plan of development for Spence might have netted to this point, and just how accomplished he might be were he in the hands of a promoter who showed more interest in getting a quicker return on his investment, who cared to do more than showcase Showcase until a title shot materialized. Because the list of PBC welterweights who Spence scores the shine off of might well be exhaustive. If that is being too generous to a fighter whose best opponent is Algieri or Bundu, those would-be victims are partly responsible. For if real questions to determining Spence’s class haven’t been asked, nor have they been answered with the middling effect of his peers.
Whether he is fighter enough to beat Brook, thankfully, is a question that will hang in the air for only a few more days. Should he prove to be, Spence will validate the PBC in a way no other fighter has: responsible for his path to a title, Haymon & Co. will forever be able to point to Spence’s rise as proof—however dubious—that their model works (Deontay Wilder being proof of something else entirely). Brook is a world class fighter though, perhaps overlooked here if, like Julian Williams before him, Spence is benefitting from a sort of trendiness that exaggerates his abilities. Again, it is easy to like Spence, to see in him a fitting heir to the division, but he has yet to prove he belongs against anyone remotely as good as Brook.
Provided, of course, that Brook remains the fighter he was before his sideshow with Gennady Golovkin. It is not only the beating Brook took in that fight, one that left him with a broken orbital bone, but the consequences of his liberating venture beyond the 147-pound weight limit that could come into play. Recent photos of Brook show him to be in fighting shape, however, and if he has been medically cleared to resume his career, then there will be no time for excuses. Besides, while Brook fought like a man who expected neither to win nor to be allowed to suffer much for his daring, he showed his class against Golovkin, and before he was rescued by his corner managed to make the seemingly indestructible fighter look momentarily vulnerable. It will surely be comforting to know he won’t be standing across the ring from a middleweight monster next Saturday, and that Spence will not shake off the type of leather Brook slammed into Golovkin’s iron chin.
That trip up the middleweight gallows aside, Brook’s competition has been largely uninspiring, and yet he is more proven than Spence. His two two-fight history with hardscrabble journeyman Carson Jones showed that Brook not only has a fighter’s comportment but the ability to learn from and improve upon his mistakes, things you need not establish in finessing a fighter to a title. And his title winning effort against Shawn Porter—which Brook delivered on US soil—is aging well. There are stylistic considerations to make as well. Given his aggression, Spence is there to be hit; Brook not only has the size and nerve to stare down “The Truth” but his arsenal, traditional yet effectively employed, is well-suited to exploit aggression. The fight may simply come down to this: Who breaks first: Spence, under the penalty of his aggression, or Brook, from an attack he will suffer to dissuade?
The answer to that question has been compelling for as long as it’s been pondered. Very well, let’s have the answer.
