Kell Brook has been reflecting on his decorated career, saying that one fight in particular will always be a regret.
Brook competed between 2004 and 2022 and was seen as one of the best welterweights on the planet in the mid 2010s.
By then, he had secured a hugely impressive world title win over the tough American Shawn Porter out in the United States, making it one of the best away victories of any Brit in history.
He defended his IBF welterweight title with wins over Jo Jo Dan, Frankie Gavin and Kevin Bizier before going into the toughest match of his career.
Speaking to Fight Your Corner, Brook admitted the fight with Gennady Golovkin in 2016 that saw him move up two full weight classes and get knocked out in the fifth round was a step too far.
“If I were living a clean life, I would never have taken the Golovkin fight. I do regret it, but at the same time, people still come up to me and say wow for getting in and putting up the performance I did while it lasted. Unbelievably good.
“Golovkin’s got this presence. When I got in, he had this robe on. He took his robe off and it’s the first time I thought to myself, ‘I can’t get out now. It’s just him and me.’
“I got clipped in the first round on the temple, and I’ve never been rocked like that. My plan was to box him. When he clipped me, that mentality, I just thought, ‘let’s fight then, let’s go.'”
Golovkin is a former two-time unified champion who was ranked as one of the pound-for-pound kings in September 2017 and the 21 middleweight title defences he made is the most in the division’s history.
The only losses in his 45-fight career both came against Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, with one of them seen as highly controversial.
Brook fought six more times after ‘GGG’, including losing to Errol Spence and Terence Crawford before eventually retiring in 2022 after beating his long time British rival Amir Khan by knockout.
