WBA welterweight champion Keith Thurman says that Britain’s Kell Brook (33-0, 22 KOs) got outworked last night by IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (24-1-1, 15 KOs) through the entire 12 round bout at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
Thurman feels that the judges focused more on Brook landing the cleaner landing shots rather than the high volume punching from Porter. The judges gave it to the guy with the better power, in other words.
(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) Amir Khan sees a victory by Britain’s Kell Brook (32-0, 22 KOs) tonight against IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (24-0-1, 15 KOs) as opening the door for a big fight between the two of them in the UK in the near future.
Khan isn’t saying precisely when he wants to face Brook, but you’ve got to figure that it would need to happen fairly soon. Brook doesn’t have the kind of talent to hold down the WBA title for long if he were to face the likes of Keith Thurman, Floyd Mayweather Jr or Manny Pacquiao. You’d have to favor all three of those fighters to beat Brook if a fight were made.
Tonight, Dirrell is going to need to stay 100% focused on hitting and getting out of the way of Bika’s fierce assaults. Dirrell cannot fight the same way by standing in front of Bika hoping he can get the better of him.
Bika showed last time that he’s the better slugger of the two, and more capable of winning those kinds of brawling fight. Dirrell had Bika hurt and on the canvas in the 5th, but he wasn’t able to repeat that in any of the remaining rounds
British challenger Kell Brook (32-0, 22 KOs) is promising a knockout for Saturday night against IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (24-0-1, 15 KOs) when they battle it out in an important fight at the StubHub Center in Carson, California. Brook weighed in 146.5 pounds at today’s weigh-in.
Brook towered over Porter during the face-off with him and seemed to have lost the nervousness that he initially had during their final press conference on Thursday. Porter weighed in at 146.75.
The fight is important because the winner of the Brook-Porter fight can move forward to potential bigger fights in the future against the likes of Amir Khan and Floyd Mayweather Jr. The loser will need to start over and try and rebuild their career.
49-year-old Bernard Hopkins (55-6-2, 32 KOs) has surprised a lot of boxing fans by being able to come back from a 12 round decision loss to Chad Dawson in 2012 and turning things around by winning his last three fights against Tavoris Cloud, Karo Murat and Beibut Shumenov.
Hopkins was seen as nearing the end of his career when Dawson beat him, but Hopkins has definitely turns things around with his last three wins. While it was nice that Hopkins beat Cloud, Murat and Shumenov, the wins were still largely shallow ones given how vulnerable all three of those fighters were.
(Photo credit: Hogan Photos) #6 WBC Anthony Dirrell (26-0-1, 22 KOs) plans on taking a page out of the playbook of his defensive-minded brother Andre Dirrell by strictly boxing WBC super middleweight champion Sakio Bika (32-5-3, 21 KOs) and not letting him hit him in their rematch this Saturday night at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
Dirrell made it easy for Bika the last time they fought by standing perfectly still in front of him during the fight. Later on in the second half of the action, Dirrell frequently was backed up against the ropes and took a lot of punishing body and head shots.
Andre Dirrell tried to give Anthony advice in between rounds by telling him to stay off the ropes and box Bika in the center of the ring, but Anthony stuck with his game plan of trying to beat Bika by out-slugging him.
Former IBF/WBA/WBC/WBO middleweight champion Jermain Taylor (32-4-1, 20 KOs) is getting a miracle world title shot against IBF middleweight champion Sam Soliman (44-11, 18 KOs) in less than two months from now on 10/4. The venue hasn’t been decided as of yet.
Taylor is ranked at the bottom of the IBF rankings at #15, which would make him seem like an unlikely opponent for Soliman. But Soliman is obviously looking for a guy he thinks he can beat rather than someone than can give him a real test like Martin Murray and of course Golovkin.
On Tuesday, IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch asked boxing fans on his Facebook account to pick out who they would like to see him fight from these three fighters: Julio Cesar Chavez, James DeGale and Gennady Golovkin. Froch initially asked fans if they wanted to see him fight DeGale or Chavez Jr. But a couple hours later, Froch added Golovkin’s name to the list.
As you would guess, Chavez Jr jumped out to a huge lead over the other contestants. However, now a day later, Golovkin has narrowed Chavez Jr’s lead considerably and is within striking distance of taking the lead.
Hatton knows what kinds of skills that Brook has, because he lost to him a couple of years ago by a 12 round decision. Hatton took Brook’s best shots for the first 8 rounds, and fought well in the last four rounds after Brook gassed out. Brook has since taken care of his stamina problems by carefully monitoring his diet.
“I think he’s got a great chance going into this fight,” Hatton said to Skyboxing.com. “I believe Kell is a special fighter. I believe he can do it.”
Brook has analyzed Porter’s fighting style and he doesn’t see any way that he can use his aggressive attacks against him on Saturday. Brook points to his timing and his power that will keep Porter from being able to crowd him the way he does all of his opponents.
Brook wants to hit Porter with hard shots each time he tries to charge him to get inside. Brook sees Porter eventually giving up on the idea of trying to fight him on the inside, and instead he’ll stick to the outside where Brook holds all the advantages due to his superior height and reach.