By Keith Idec
Errol Spence Jr. was the first to admit that he wasn’t exactly spectacular Saturday night.
Spence said he felt sluggish early in his IBF welterweight championship victory over Kell Brook in Sheffield, England, Brook’s hometown. The undefeated former Olympian responded to his slow start by picking up the pace before making Brook take a knee in the 10th round and the 11th round, when Brook decided he couldn’t continue due to blurry vision in his left eye.
“It didn’t pan out exactly how I thought it would,” Spence told Showtime’s Jim Gray in the ring following his win. “I thought I would be a little bit sharper. I didn’t feel that sharp tonight, but that’s what true champions do – they push it out and they show true grit, like I did.”
The 27-year-old Spence attributed his uneven performance to the nine-month layoff he endured while waiting for his mandatory shot at the 31-year-old Brook (36-2, 25 KOs). Before Saturday night, Spence (22-0, 19 KOs), of DeSoto, Texas, hadn’t boxed since he knocked out Italy’s Leonard Bundu (33-2-2, 12 KOs) in the sixth round of their IBF elimination match August 21 in Brooklyn, New York.
“It was a bit tougher [than I expected],” Spence said. “I don’t think I was as sharp as I wanted to be. I think the nine-month layoff kinda threw me off a little bit, and I was kinda sluggish in there. But true champions show grit and show a lot of determination. That’s what I proved tonight – that I can tackle a lot of the questions that needed to be answered. Can I take a punch? And I proved I can take a punch, and I can also give one back.”
Spence graded his performance as only a “B-minus,” despite that he forced an elite welterweight to quit before his hometown crowd of 27,000 at Bramall Lane, a soccer stadium in Sheffield.
“I don’t think I did too good,” Spence told Sky Sports Box Office. “I think I was a little bit off, on my offense and my defense. But, you know, I give Kell a lot of credit. You know, I give these fans here – they’re beautiful fans, they’re hardcore fans. They came out here to support their hometown champion.”
A proud Spence seemed to realize, however, exactly what he had accomplished by traveling overseas to convincingly win his first world title in hostile territory.
“Oh definitely, it’s a legacy-defining fight,” Spence said. “That’s what true champions do. You know, you go anywhere to fight. He came to America and took the title [from Shawn Porter in August 2014]. So I came over here to take the title from him. But he’s a true champion. I wanted to fight the champion and Kell Brook gave me the opportunity, and I think him for that.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.