Paul Smith: Golovkin is a Destroyer, Brook Must Confuse Him

By Edward Chaykovsky

World title challenger Paul Smith is finding it hard to select IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (36-0, 25KOs) to upset the odds this coming Saturday night.

Brook will move up by thirteen pounds to challenge IBF/WBC/WBA/IBO middleweight world champion Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (35-0, 32KOs) at the O2 Arena in London.

Smith had his own taste of jumping in weight last year. He fights at 168-pounds, but took a good opportunity in the Unites States to move up in weight and came in at 176.5 last June - but he was battered over nine rounds by Andre Ward.

Smith believes the contest is going to come down to size and power - unless Brook can use defense, movement, counter-punching and switch up his angles to confuse Golovkin with different looks at all time.

Brook believes he is capable of knocking Golovkin out. Smith doubts that will happen. He doesn't see any fighter at middleweight and super middleweight as being capable of putting Golovkin on his back.

"He looks great at middleweight - all the photographs, videos and the footage that I have seen of Kell recently, he looks in fantastic shape. He looks like a natural middleweight but the fact is he is not a natural middleweight. He will end up a big light-middleweight, so to speak, but Golovkin is a naturally powerful, strong middleweight who is feared and avoided and just a massive, ferocious puncher at middleweight and so strong," Smith said to Sky Sports.

"Everyone that speaks about Golovkin, he is known all around the world for it, he is a destroyer, basically, and Kell has to stay away from him, 'I'll box him and try confuse him and pick him off and make Golovkin miss' for 12 rounds. I don't think there is a middleweight/super-middleweight out there who could stop Golovkin in his tracks, he is so strong.

"He's [Brook] certainly got the style and ability to trouble him. It is a fascinating fight in the fact that it is the weight differential between them both. If it was Golovkin moving up two weights to fight Brook then it would certainly be a very close fight but the way that Brook is moving up, he's a naturally big lad anyway, he was always too big for welterweight.

"Kell Brook has got the tools - has he got the size, the endurance and the durability to take what Gennady Golovkin is going to be giving him on Saturday night? It is a massive ask and everyone will be behind him but I don't think you'll be able to prepare for Golovkin and then just get in there and probably realise it is a different game when you are in there with him.