Kell Brook v Gennady Golovkin: 'Briton one punch away from greatness' - BBC

00:13, 11 September 2016

LONDON. KAZINFORM The kid can't win. Two years of flak about the calibre of his opponents, from keyboard warriors firing off blanks from armchairs, and the second Kell Brook signs to fight the most dangerous fighter on the planet, those same keyboard warriors accuse him of embarking on a suicide mission.

Few British sport fans hanker after the lean 1990s, when finishing runner-up in tennis' US Open could land you the Sports Personality of the Year award. But, for Britain's current sportsmen and women, performing in a golden era has its downsides.

For when gold medals and world titles are falling down on the public like a blizzard, it becomes difficult for an athlete to stand out from the crowd.

Britain has 14 boxing world champions, some of whom could walk down any high street in the land (except, perhaps, the high street in their home town) unaccosted. Maybe they enjoy the anonymity, but anonymity doesn't get the tills ringing. And ringing tills are what professional boxing is all about.

"To stand out and become a great fighter you have to go out and do something crazy," says Brook's promoter Eddie Hearn, whose tills haven't stopped ringing since the fight was announced in July."You can't just defend your world title against mandatory challengers in Sheffield. That's where the sport has foundered in the past. Now there is an acceptance from fighters and their teams that they have to be in big fights.

"It's my job as a promoter to look at the different opportunities, present them to a fighter and say, 'You're one punch away from becoming the biggest star in world boxing. Go and do it, son, and you'll change your life forever.' Kell's a big boy, an unbeaten world champion. He's not a six-round novice."