Hours after Kell Brook lost his IBF welterweight championship to Errol Spence Jr., it was revealed that Brook suffered another broken eye.
Only this time, it’s Brook’s left eye socket that is broken after Spence’s jabs attacked Brook’s left eye. Brook suffered a broken right eye socket after his fifth-round loss to Gennady Golovkin last September.
Promoter Eddie Hearn confirmed Brook’s injury. "It looks like a carbon copy of the last injury," Hearn said.
One of the biggest stories heading into the fight was whether or not Brook’s surgically-repaired right eye can handle a fighter of Spence's power. Unfortunately for Brook, it was his left eye that started to swell badly, beginning in the seventh round. Brook said he could not handle the double vision from the swollen left eye and thus, Brook lost his title via 11th round knockout against Spence.
"I got caught in the seventh round in the left eye," Brook said in the post-fight interview. "It was like the Golovkin fight, although not quite as bad. He caught me in the 11th and the double vision just stuck. I live to fight another day - I'm gutted that, in front of my home fans, I've lost my belt."
A somewhat similar scenario happened several years ago with former welterweight champion Antonio Margarito. In 2010, Margarito suffered a similar injury from his fight against Manny Pacquiao. After Margarito lost via unanimous decision, surgery was done to repair a fractured left orbital bone. Margarito would return to fight Miguel Cotto in 2011 and Cotto targeted the then-recently repaired eye and damaged it even more.
Due to the left eye being extremely damaged and the reluctance from athletic commissions to license someone with an eye in that condition, Margarito would not fight for nearly five years until returning to the ring on March 2016.
After the fight, Brook declined to say whether or not he would be leaving the welterweight division to move onto light middleweight.
