Errol Spence makes a proper job of it

By Bart Barry-

Saturday in Sheffield undefeated Texas welterweight Errol Spence beat Sheffield’s own Kell Brook to a knee from which Brook did not rise halfway through round 11 and like that Spence became one of the world’s two best prizefighters at 147 pounds. What the conclusion wanted for suspense it enjoyed in decisiveness with Brook physically bowed and emotionally crumpled.

As an aficionado ages in the sport of boxing – a cynicism incubator, if you will – he becomes increasingly less interested in controversies because they never resolve, as little in life does, and folks pettifogging judges’ scorecards in the name of something like closure look increasingly undernourished. A roundabout way, that, of reporting this: In most cases if the final bell rings on a match, I don’t much care who wins anymore. If violent decisiveness is what attracted me to our beloved sport as a boy it’s what keeps me interested as a man in direct proportion to the number of world titles won by knockout.

Title defenses that end in knockouts are certainly better than title defenses that do not but cynicism’s incubator teaches you at some point about the craft of long-game matchmaking, setting up b-sides over a year or 18 months to make a-sides look all the more spectacular in victory (the reason a Canelo knockout of Golovkin would be so much more meaningful than any other outcome of their September fight). Maybe it’s the enduring rot of Money May’s effect, of handicapping each prospective match to within moments of expiration, that embellishes this desire for a conclusiveness that manifests itself in postfight silence: the vanquished being so vanquished nobody’s listening and the victor being so victorious no word can improve him.

Such was Saturday’s conclusion. Spence had nothing he might say to improve what he did, and Brook had nothing he could say to improve what he did either. Brook lost his title on one knee in a fight he was leading. All the publicist spin in the history of dictionaries cannot improve that. He spent not an instant of the match unconscious, and he resorted to that same squeamishly bad tactic of pointing to his eye for the benefit of fans and referee and commentators as he did in his previous match. Whatever sort of lion Brook may be when signing for fights he is not hardy enough to be a great prizefighter.

To listen to British broadcasters Brook was within a punch of losing his life when he took a knee the first time, in round 10, and only his irregularly large heart got him to the end of that round. Which makes good theater if Brook somehow blitzes Spence in round 11 to retain his title, or at least gets circuitbroken, but every moment of consciousness after the first knee invalidates the peril that brought that first knee and makes the second knee simply poor form.

Don’t see it that way? Watch Spence deflate in the moment before his brain processes he’s now welterweight champion; Spence is neither frightened of what he’s done to Brook nor particularly triumphant so much as disappointed in his rival’s comportment; he knows the best moment of his career thus far has become a question of Brook’s character much as a confirmation of his own prowess.

That’s not Spence’s fault, of course, so let’s move on from Kell Brook and not look back.

Errol Spence went to another man’s hometown, and after appearing outclassed in the opening third of the match beat a titlist to quitting. If Spence is not a special fighter, in other words, he’s yet to prove it. There were some subtle adjustments made by both men at various moments of the fight but the decisive adjustment Spence made was to go harder at his opponent’s body, and it was not subtle. Sometime after the match’s midpoint Spence sensed a bend in his opponent, a spot of give, a fragility he planned through training camp to exploit but hadn’t seen in 20 minutes of looking. No one farther from the apron than a trainer sees these things, and often the largest part of a trainer’s task is convincing his charge to trust his sense of it: What you saw that round, son, that fissure, was true, was right, trust yourself, he’s cracking.

Spence needs to reminders because he knows no differently; he breaks the men placed across from him and trusts unconditionally any intuitive flash that tells him another man is hairlined. Once Spence confirms the other’s weakness he accelerates. “Truth” is an apt nickname for Spence because what one gathered from the entirety of Saturday’s match was an abiding honesty in the combat Spence makes.

What remains to be seen in future championship fights – and let us be relatively greedy in hoping Keith Thurman remains serious about unification in 2017 – is how Spence reacts to a man he cannot break on schedule. Thurman may be that man, and he probably is not.

Finally, Spence is the first prizefighter to give one hope about PBC’s prospects for survival as a promotional outfit, not merely a venture-capitalist black hole. Spence is PBC born and PBC raised – the one part of Al Haymon’s 2012 Olympian-capture initiative that will work out. If Haymon’s outfit gives us a unified champion of our sport’s best division by the end of this year the PBC and its model will deserve a second look and maybe even a bit less cynicism.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry