Root and Stokes grind down weary India to stretch lead beyond 100
The evidence to retire is staring Kell Brook right in the face
Kell Brook celebrates victory over Mark DeLuca in the vacant WBO Intercontinental Super-welterweight title fight at the FlyDSA Arena, Sheffield, in February 2020
THEY say that a fighter is often the last to know when it’s time to retire. This is a truth that nobody who watched Kell Brook’s defeat against pound-for-pound king Terence Crawford at the MGM in Vegas last weekend would disagree with.
A pro for 17 years, the 34-year-old former IBF welterweight world champion fought like an ageing gunslinger desperate to defy Father Time against a much younger challenger, having convinced himself that he still had what it took regardless of the evidence to the contrary — evidence staring him in the face.
In the case of Brook this is a face that has been subjected to two reconstructive surgeries in the past five years to repair two shattered orbital bones: the first against Gennady Golovkin in 2015, the second against Errol Spence in 2017.
More from this author
Mary Kom’s fists made history in the boxing world. Malak Mesleh’s never got the chance. One story ends in glory, the other in grief — but both highlight the defiance of women who dare to fight, writes JOHN WIGHT
The Khelif gender row shows no sign of being resolved to the satisfaction of anyone involved anytime soon, says boxing writer JOHN WIGHT
When Patterson and Liston met in the ring in 1962, it was more than a title bout — it was a collision of two black archetypes shaped by white America’s fears and fantasies, writes JOHN WIGHT
In the land of white supremacy, colonialism and the foul legacy of the KKK, JOHN WIGHT knows that to resist the fascism unleashed by Trump is to do God’s work
