The 30 year-old, who moves up thirteen pounds in weight to face one of the biggest punchers – pound for pound – of his generation, is rightly a massive underdog to pull off what would be one of the shocks of the modern era.
With a 2014 win over Shawn Porter backing up his credentials, Brook has talked a good fight, as expected since the contest was made official, but the fact that this encounter is not pay-per-view in America makes you realise where the Briton stands in the current scheme of things.
Golovkin made his US PPV debut last year in a crushing victory over David Lemieux and would certainly have been hoping for another crack at the paid system following a profited 150,000 buys on HBO.
As it stands, GGG v Brook is entirely big enough in the UK to attract Sky Sports Box Office into the bargain, meaning both men will be getting a hefty cheque when the dust settles on Saturday’s O2 blockbuster.
There has been a vast promotional drive from Matchroom Boxing on the fight, which has been well received by most, although there are those few sceptics – which includes pro fighters – who just don’t believe Brook has a chance.
As it stands, Brook is a huge underdog.
So how does he win? – That’s very tough question. How does anyone keep a snarling beast of a man at bay for twelve rounds when everything he lands hurts you? – Plenty of tough fighters have found out to their detriment in the past as Golovkin proved time and again that he’s simply a level above anything else out there at middleweight.
Brook is a super-welterweight at best right now and has never really displayed that huge power that could stop anyone in their tracks, let alone a solid punching juggernaut that hits from unimaginable angles.
The blueprint for ‘The Special One’ to look at would obviously be the current king of boxing, Floyd Mayweather Jr. as the American is a master on how to deal with a bigger fighter and not take too many punches.
Make Golovkin hit his arms, elbows and adopt a shoulder roll-type technique is key, although Brook still has to get enough shots off himself to rack up the points as only Mayweather could do fight after fight in the past. ‘Money’ Mayweather stifled bigger men in Canelo, Miguel Cotto, Oscar De La Hoya and even Marcos Maidana in their two fights and came out of all 60 rounds with barely a bloody nose (against Cotto).
Obviously, Brook will be aiming to impose his own style of fighting on the 160 pound champion, but taking a look at some of those performances by Mayweather certainly wouldn’t do him any harm.
The truth is, real tests for ‘GGG’ are yet to come and are likely to happen when the Kazakh hero eventually pushes his boundaries and looks as high at 175 pounds to further his legacy as the likes of Andre Ward, Sergey Kovalev and Adonis Stevenson would serve as interesting opposition.
Golovkin may want to at least win a world title at 168 before that happens though and I can’t see how Brook can make a titanic leap from his perch as 147 pound title holder to stop the 34 year-old from remaining untouched at his current weight.
Should Brook be able to pull it off, his stock would skyrocket instantly and place him up there with the greatest fighters ever to hail from UK shores.
