Former WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew was not very happy with the way Kell Brook decided to end his fight with Errol Spence on Saturday night.
Bellew was ringside, and watched Brook lose his IBF welterweight title to unbeaten Errol Spence at Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane ground.
Spence Jr — who has not looked back since losing in the 2012 Olympic quarter-finals — has been called the ‘real deal’ by Hall of Fame legend Sugar Ray Leonard and forced the referee to stop the fight in the 11th round after an absorbing no-holds barred contest.
Brook and his promoter Eddie Hearn confirmed that a broken left eye socket was suffered.
Brook — who had hoped to fulfil a prophecy by his uncle years ago he would successfully defend his title at the ground of the club he supports — suffered the same injury last September but to his right eye in his bout against middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin.
Against Spence, Brook had gone down in the tenth round. And then he took a voluntary knee during the eleventh and allowed referee Howard Foster to count him out.
"I'm disappointed. It's tough to watch - it was like the fight was beaten out of Kell. I love Kell to bits, but you can't do that. You've got to bite down on the gum shield. He can end that fight with one punch - you have to keep going until you can't go any more," Bellew said.
"I'm not saying he quit. What I'm saying is he had the fight beaten out of him. You've got to remember he's been through a bad injury. He's probably think in the back of his mind 'I could go blind if I don't do this...' But you have to expel all those things from your mind. We are fighters, warriors, freaks, whatever you want to call us. But you have to fight until you have no fight left in you."