Was Kell Brook UNDERRATED or OVERRATED?

This.

 

He belonged at world level. He was above the national, regional, commonwealth, etc. circuit. He was not elite though IMO.

Was he p4p? No. Was he the best of the division at the time? Debatable. He should've fought Vargas and Thurman. And then Spence before the GGG fight. He was mismanaged by Eddie but Kell was motivated by the pound note so supply meets demand. He wasn't concerned with legacy IMO.

He knew how to subdue an opponent's volume, albeit with ugly boxing, and he threw lovely technical, textbook, punches, and his timing was lovely - e.g., little lean back followed up with an uppercut/straight left-right. However, he lacked more crinkles to his game. The technique of his punches were a bit too unvaried, he lacked head movement & feints, his distance management and footwork weren't what I thought of a very adaptable, elite level fighter. I thought his basic jab while strong and fast just lacked variety of what's meant to be a multifaceted tool. A solid 7/10.

Like others have said, GGG broke him. The stabbing of him broke him before that and he enjoyed the party (Charlie) lifestyle. But at the end of the day, he just didn't wanna be the best of the best. I think he could've been the creme de la creme of the 147 division with dedication, but I don't think his boxing would've been exciting or beautiful.

 

I don't really care, tbh. Not even his mother will know him in 5 years from now.

 

Fighting Brook at the very end of his career was a pure business decision by Khan.

He knew he would lose but it allowed him to maximise every other payday available to him, "age out" Brook (which backfired massively), and save the best till last in terms of getting the biggest payday at the very end.

In hindsight, quite excellent from a business strategy point of view

 

I think he’s probably a bit underrated. He was beating Spence until he seemed to run out of steam all of a sudden, and the American is grossly overrated.

 

Kell wasted his career, he was very very good in his prime, genuine world class operator but poor discipline and inactivity plagued his career.
Every fight felt like a "warm up" fight. No ambition. I reckon Brook on his best day would have beaten Spence.

 

This.

 

For sure he would have beaten Spence if he had avoided GGG.

 

He had the fish on the hook, sure as sure.

 

Put it this way, around the time he was at world level. He could have been facing Garcia, Thurman (to this da,y I think Kell beats him), Vargas, Bradley, Maidana etc

He could have been a unified champion at least, but GGG ruined him. He gave a decent account V Spence but just couldn't get over the line.

40 wins, yet he faced so many B level fighters it was unreal, mismanaged to sin. A real waste.

 

Eddie did him dirty, mis-managed him something terrible.

Under rated!

 

Nah, Eddie was his promotor not his manager, made him a rich man...Kell has no one to blame but himself by all accounts for underachieving.

 

Neither.................he was rated appropriately for where he was and what he achieved.

Everything isn't about either being underrated or overrated. Some people are reflected on exactly where they should be. He was a top 2-3 guy for a while, then ruined his career in an idiotic chase at greatness, then coming back down and having the rest of it beat out of him. He can always hang his hat on the fact that he humbled and embarrassed his arch nemesis (even though it was post prime for both)

 

I'm not saying this as if Brook could've been some amazing top 20 ATG, but what you brought up is a perfect example of horribly managed careers. Khan and Brook are a major blip in welterweight history as what ifs that could've made things a lot kore exciting with better management.

Prior to the GGG disaster (which absolutely wasn't worth the money and was an incredibly stupid move), Brook would've been 50/50 with Thurman, Porter, and prime Khan. In other words, he could've potentially beaten all of them and become the top dog at 147. I'm 100% certain he'd beat Danny Garcia, Provodnikov, Collazo, Berto, Marquez, Broner, etc who all would've been decent scalps to add to his resume.

Not sure if he'd beat, Spence prior to the skull mangling, but anything is possible. We're looking at a hall of fame worthy career at this point. The only one I'm certain he doesn't beat is Crawford, that would be the end of the line regardless.

Now of course, it's highly unlikely Brook remains undefeated going through that gauntlet even in a best case scenario, but it does go to show you that his ceiling was fairly high at his peak. Brook was a real dark horse in the division who could've upset almost anyone.

 

Crawford must be trash then. Spence fought the tougher opponents to gain 3 belts while Bud had the easy route. Interesting revisionism.