By Keith Idec
Paulie Malignaggi always enjoys England, but the former two-division champion is more excited than usual about this trip to the United Kingdom.
Malignaggi considers Kell Brook-Errol Spence Jr. the best fight currently on the boxing schedule, a slate that includes the long-awaited middleweight championship clash between Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin. He isn’t selling Brook-Spence because Malignaggi will call the fight from ringside for Showtime, which will air their IBF welterweight title fight Saturday from Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England (5:15 p.m. ET/2:15 p.m. PT).
Malignaggi is genuinely looking forward to watching Spence challenge Brook because they’re each elite-level welterweights with chips on their shoulders. He considers them two of three best welterweights in boxing, along with Keith Thurman, but is uniquely intrigued by their battle because both boxers still have plenty to prove.
“These are two of the best fighters in the weight class,” Malignaggi told BoxingScene.com. “You have two of the best technicians in the weight class and in boxing. And more so than anything, this is a fight where both of the guys have yet to achieve their ultimate goal. When you have Mayweather-Pacquiao, you had two fighters that were very famous, both had a lot of money and pretty much had achieved all their goals.
“So the fight became more of a money-grab than anything else. It’s still a fight and you’re gonna get all the skills of the fighters in the ring. But what you’re missing at that point, and there’s always a point in a fighter’s career when he starts to lose this a little bit, you’re missing the ferocity. Every fighter actually loses that ferocity little by little. You know, you either make too much money or you get a little older and start to not have as much desire, or he’s not as mean anymore.”
That’s not at all the case with Brook or Spence.
The 31-year-old Brook (36-1, 25 KOs) displayed incredible toughness by moving up two weight classes to challenge the dangerous Golovkin in his last fight. While widely commended for taking that type of risk, it cost the Sheffield native his first defeat – a fifth-round technical knockout caused by his trainer, Dominic Ingle, stopping the fight – and necessitated surgery to insert a titanium plate into his fractured right orbital bone.
Yet even after standing toe-to-toe with Kazakhstan’s Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs), a punishing puncher who had knocked out 22 straight opponents prior to boxing Brook on September 10 at 02 Arena in London, fans thought he would avoid facing Spence.
His own promoter, Eddie Hearn, tried to convince Brook to give up his IBF 147-pound championship and pursue a safer, more lucrative fight against Miguel Cotto at 154 pounds. Hearn considered Spence more risk than he is worth, but Brook, bothered by the perception that he would duck Spence, refused to move up and ordered Hearn to make this fight.
The 27-year-old Spence (21-0, 18 KOs) has even more to prove than Brook.
The strong southpaw from DeSoto, Texas, has been touted as a surefire superstar by virtually everyone in boxing, including retired pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather Jr. Thanks to an uncommon combination of poise, power and skill, Spence’s sparring sessions against such stars as Mayweather and Adrien Broner were already legendary at the prospect stage of Spence’s four-year pro career.
But beyond former WBO junior welterweight champion Chris Algieri, whom Spence tore through on his way to a fifth-round stoppage 13 months ago at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, Spence’s record is devoid of noteworthy names. The 2012 Olympian is the first to admit that he hasn’t fought anyone nearly as good as Brook.
Then again, that’s what Saturday night is about for the soft-spoken, respectful Spence – starting to live up to the hype.
“The thing I like best about this fight is from a business perspective it’s risky for both of these guys,” Malignaggi said. “So not great for them, but from a fan’s point of view it’s terrific because they’re still at the points in their careers where they haven’t lost that ferocity. They both have all the skills of supreme, elite fighters. But they still have that hunger and desire in them to achieve a lot, so that ferocity doesn’t leave. It’s very important.
“That’s why a fight like Leonard and Hearns was so terrific, because at that point in time in their careers there was still the ferocity in both of them. But probably the reason Mayweather and Pacquiao was not so good was because at that point in their lives, they both had the skills, but that ferocity had kind of left them. They were older, had made a lot of money and you start to feel more satisfied. And you start to feel tired of being so mean all the time. But when you’re young, you still have everything in front of you. You’re not only talented and skilled, you’re ferocious in there as well. You have this mean streak in you, and that’s the most special thing about this fight. These guys are supreme, A-level, elite fighters, with the ferocity of hungry fighters inside them. And that’s why this fight, for me, is the best fight on the schedule.”
That’s also why Malignaggi is wrestling with who will win Saturday night.
Brook and Spence both are hard punchers to the head and to the body. Each is supremely confident, which explains Brook’s refusal to vacate his title and Spence’s willingness to travel to Brook’s hometown to fight him in front of a crowd expected to reach 27,000 at a soccer stadium where Brook attended matches as a child.
“I love the fight,” Malignaggi said. “I think it’s two of the best technicians in boxing, two of the best fighters in boxing and two of the best fighters in the welterweight division, for sure. I round out the top three with Thurman, Brook and Spence. You can put them in any which way or order you want to. A lot of people say Spence hasn’t earned it yet because he hasn’t got the key name [on his record]. Brook doesn’t have a lot of big names on his record as well because people didn’t wanna fight him, either. The only reason he got [Shawn] Porter is because he was the mandatory.
“I can give you a reason for both guys to win. So it’s really a situation where it’ll depend on fight night who’s feeling better and puts it together better. It’s one of those fights where they fight this week and one guy might win, and then they fight the next week and the other guy might win. A lot of it is gonna come down to who’s gonna feel better on fight day because as far as the completeness of their styles, they’re both very complete fighters.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.