Kell Brook's courage in taking a knee against Spence was exemplary

The criticism levelled at Kell Brook in the wake of his 11th round KO defeat to Errol Spence is a stark reminder that boxing is and always has been a sport of extremes, wherein the very best and the very worst of human nature is exposed. Courage, respect, resilience, and skill is offset in boxing by cowardice, venality, brutality, and cruelty. Typically the former are expressed inside the ring on the part of the fighters, while the latter is the domain of the sport's fans and spectators, many of whom take the opportunity, when watching a fight, to give expression to their own lack of achievements, happiness, or self respect by taking delight in misfortune to befall a given fighter whose only crime is to have dedicated his life to the hardest sport there is and achieve a level of fame, success, and admiration conversant with that dedication.

Every fighter who climbs through the ropes immediately puts his health and life at risk. This is a truth well known, yet regardless far too many dismiss it, preferring to view those who do risk their lives in the name of sport as mere commodities, their humanity diminished, more machines than men.

Kell Brook's courage in taking a knee in the 11th round against Spence, rather than continue and risk permanent damage up to and including blindness, was exemplary, marking him out as a true champion and role model. The idea, the ludicrous idea, that he should have fought on to bring boxing into disrepute by turning it into a savage spectacle, this is an indictment of the intelligence and base instincts of his critics.

Brook gave his all against Spence, outboxing and outfighting the American for much of the fight, but in the end he is a human being, of bone and blood, and when one of those bones break and he can't see are we seriously suggesting he should have risked permanent damage just to burnish his credentials as a 'warrior'?

Fellow professional and world cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew was particularly scathing of Brook for taking the knee when he did, accusing him of quitting in his role as pundit for Sky. This is particularly lamentable given Bellew's status and clout in the sport after defeating an injured David Haye in dramatic fashion in his own previous fight. It is worth recalling that in the build-up to that contest most people - myself included - agreed wholeheartedly with Bellew in his criticisms of David Haye's ugly rhetoric, pledging to put him in hospital and leave him unconscious.

You can't have it both ways Tony - you can't slam Brook for refusing to allow himself to sustain permanent damange while lambasting Haye for promising to dole out permanent damage to you. Furthermore you make a point of continually reminding people that your priority when it comes to boxing is making sure that you get home safely to your wife and kids, and you are absolutely right to do so. But surely you also recognise and support the right of Kell Brook to make it home safely to his family after he fights?

Perhaps the drama of the occasion took over and Tony Bellew's judgement was temporarily clouded by emotion. Hopefully in the coming days, as the smoke clears, he realises that he was wrong to attack Kell Brook, a fellow professional and a fighter who has been a credit to the sport over many years. Perhaps, with this in mind, Tony Bellew will be big enough take back his words and apologise.

Boxing is such a unique and compelling sport in that it walks a line between barbarism and nobility. Ensuring that it remains on the right side of this line is surely the most important priority of everyone who loves the sport. Kell Brook, in taking the knee when he did, ensured that he stayed on the right side of this line. As such, not only did he save himself, he saved the sport.

As none other than Aristotle reminds us, "The brave man is called rash by the coward, and cowardly by the rash man."

Former IBF welterweight champion, Kell Brook, is a brave man.

Anthony Joshua - Hero or Hype

By all accounts Anthony Joshua is a decent human being, an inordinately wealthy young fighter who hasn’t forgotten his roots and who always makes time for the fans. His recent decision to buy his old amateur coach a new BMW was notable in this regard, though the fact that a film was made and released of him doing so says much about a hype machine which after just 18 professional fights against a hodgepodge of journeymen, domestic-level opposition, and fading contenders, sees the 27 year old IBF heavyweight champion faces a 41 year old Wladimir Klitschko at Wembley Stadium in front of 90,000 fans amid more fanfare than your average royal pageant. It is testament to the timeless words attributed to the great 19th century American showman, P T Barnum: “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

The hype with which Joshua is being sold not only as an elite heavyweight, despite his record, but as a sporting icon and national role model in the UK, reaches its nadir with the new ad released by Under Armour. The US sportswear outfit bought over the rights to Ali’s name and image in the wake of his death, and in the ad we see footage of a young Ali juxtaposed with footage of Joshua in action. The inference being made both are cut from the same cloth, that they belong in the same category, is an insult not only to Ali’s legacy but even more grievously to the truth.

Ali, by way of a reminder, faced and defeated the likes of Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, George Foreman, and the US government in his career. Thus far Joshua has faced Dillian Whyte, Charles Martin, and Eric Molina. Thus not only does Joshua not belong in the same category as Muhammad Ali, he isn’t even walking on the same planet.

Hype and heavyweight boxing have always occupied two sides of the same coin. The most famous example of a hyped up heavyweight involved the Italian giant Primo Carnera. During the ill-starred 1930s boxing decade, when ringside at championship fights across America you would see more mafia hoodlums than could fit in a black mariah, Carnera was propelled as a great white hope by dint not of his ability in the ring but on the back of one of the most remarkable PR and promotional jobs ever seen. Initially managed and trained by Leon See, the Frenchman who discovered him plying his trade as a circus strongman and wrestling act in France, and who was described by the US sportswriter Paul Gallico as “one of the most intelligence, smart and wily men that ever turned a fighter loose from his corner,” Carnera inevitably fell into the clutches of the mob. Thereafter one after the other his opponents took a dive, allowing the 6’7″ giant to actually believe he was as great as they said he was, a master of defensive fighting who carried TNT in his fists.

It was a lie that ended tragically when his ‘management’ eventually ran out of excuses and they were forced to expose him to genuine opposition. This opposition came most brutally in the person of Joe Louis at Yankee Stadium on June 25, 1935, when despite giving away 65lbs in weight, the Brown Bomber bludgeoned his hapless opponent with merciless combinations until the referee stepped in to save him in the 6th round. Back to Gallico: “He [Carnera] had nothing. His title was gone, his money squandered by the gang. And the one thing he thought he had, an unbeatable skill in defence and an irresistible crushing power in attack that no man living could withstand, never existed. It was a fable as legendary as the great giants of mythology that he resembled.”

Not for a second can Britain’s Anthony Joshua be compared to Primo Carnera. The former Olympic gold medalist possesses genuine boxing ability, power, and has real potential. The point is that at this stage of his career he is yet to achieve the greatness in the ring to match the profile he currently enjoys outside it. Indeed, the disjunction between both is an achievement that belongs to a team of whom the most public face is Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn, a man who looks like he collects Rolex watches like your average 10 year old collects toy soldiers. Hearn is only the latest in a long line of boxing impressarios whose stock in trade is the identifying, packaging and selling of fighters to a gullible general public. As with every promoter who has gone before, his dream, his is to find that rare diamond in the rough in the form of a fighter who is able to cross over into mainstream stardom, it’s the equivalent of winning the lottery. Such a fighter Hearn has clearly found in Anthony Joshua.

But as with Primo Carnera, and as with Frank Bruno when he faced Mike Tyson, hype eventually crashes against the rocks of reality. If Joshua loses to an ageing Wladimir Klitschko at Wembley the ensuing damage limitation will centre on his lack of experience at the elite level compare to Klitschko, and how he deserves huge credit for taking this challenge at such an early stage in his career. However if he emerges victorious he will be regaled as the toast not only of heavyweight boxing but British sport as a whole, with brands flocking to offer him even more lucrative sponsorship deals than those he already has and Eddie Hearn smiling all the way to his local Bentley dealership.