Brook, 30, had shown tremendous heart in a four-round war with ‘GGG’ at London’s O2 Arena, although the sheer power of the middleweight champion in the fifth was ultimately too much.
A welterweight prior to the contest, Brook looks set to move to 154 pounds for his next fight after enhancing his reputation in suffering a first career loss.
Golovkin hunted Brook down for the first rounds, taking punches which obviously didn’t hold enough power as he did so, until eventually trainer Ingle told the referee, Marlon Wright he’d seen enough.
The cards, revealed by Matchroom boss Eddie Hearn on Monday, represent another small victory for Brook who was vindicated for his initial decision to accept the fight despite the certainty of defeat. World Boxing News also had the fight 38-38 level when the towel came in.
Here are the official scorecards from Saturday's fight #GGGBrook pic.twitter.com/4uXJFERtC2
— Eddie Hearn (@EddieHearn) September 12, 2016
A 23rd straight knockout for Golovkin was favoured by the vast majority of the boxing fraternity pre-fight as the solid Kazakh added to his fearsome reputation with a 36th career triumph.
The fifth round was a brutal reminder to everyone of just how devastating Golovkin can be as Brook struggled to defend himself against a sickening barrage.
Moving on to super welterweight is the logical choice for Brook, whilst Golovkin looks set to fight either Billy Joe Saunders or Danny Jacobs late in 2016 or early next year,
