Just from taking a casual tour through the online Universo Pugilistico these last couple of days, it's apparent that lots of people missed out on a potentially huge changing of the guard moment in boxing.
Buried in their own biases and mental hang-ups, they viewed Errol Spence Jr.'s thrilling eleven-round victory over defending IBF welterweight champ Kell Brook with a jaded eye-talking about Brook quitting (more on that later) and trying to paint the picture that Spence's gritty, mature, stellar win was more about Brook simply falling apart than Spence assuming the throne.
Make no mistake about it, though, Errol Spence Jr's victory this past Saturday was every bit the high-importance coronation that Anthony Joshua's win over Wladimir Klitschko was last month.
The 27-year-old Spence was not only taking a huge step up in class, but also trusting his fate entirely in his own hands by travelling to the defending champ's home turf.
But even when Brook seemed to be getting the better of Spence, beating him to the punch, outmaneuvering, and taking most of the first half of the bout, the Desoto, Texas native stood his ground and kept plugging away.
Spence stuck to his game plan, not going into panic mode even when falling behind on the scorecards in hostile territory. He kept pushing and pushing, punctuating every flurry of punches with energy-sapping body shots.
As the fight wore on, the steady pressure began to take its toll. Spence was landing more shots and bigger shots, forcing the defending champ into more and more of a defensive posture. Swelling underneath the left eye of Brook gave the first visual indication that the champ was starting to fall apart. A knockdown in the tenth was proof positive that Spence had definitively turned the tide.
To Brooks' credit, he fought hard even when clearly hurt, nearly turning back the inevitable on a couple of occasions against a surging Spence. But it was all too much at some point for Brooks and he ended the affair by taking a knee in the eleventh, complaining of impaired vision in his battered left eye.
In a perfect boxing world, a performance like last Saturday's would be a stepping stone to stardom. Spence may or may not be afforded a chance at that stardom, however, because today's American fight scene, with compromised media openly cheerleading against fighters with the "wrong" business alliances and fans being dragged along into the partisan muck, is not exactly conducive to producing stars anymore.
But if anyone has a chance at bucking the stifling politics of today's media and "hardcore" fandom, it's a guy like Spence.
A likeable character with an entertaining ring style and a whole bevy of potential high-end match-ups available to him at 147, the new IBF champ has the perfect opportunity to become the star American boxing needs.
The sky's the limit for Spence and while bouts with Danny Garcia, Shawn Porter, and, down the line, Keith Thurman may be the most realistic options for him, one can't help but think of names such as Manny Pacquiao and Terence Crawford (in what would be a stellar, maybe tops in all of boxing, stylistic pairing) somehow coming into play when/if enough money is on the table.
It boggles the mind that some fans and media, rather than applaud the emergence of a new player on the main stage of the sport, are busy trying to minimize the victory. To listen to them, one gets the impression that Spence's big win was more a case of Brook fumbling on the goal line, quitting on a fight he could've and should've won. Spence gets partial credit for being there to pick up the pieces as they crumbled, but little more.
The reality, though, is that if Brook crumbled, it was because of Spence. Brook, against his American challenger, started the fight looking as sharp as he has ever looked, sharp enough to beat any other welterweight challenger that night-except for Spence, who never resigned himself to a loss and gradually wore Brook down before beating him up.
Efforts to snatch the glory from Spence have consequently shown Brook in a much worse light than appropriate. Calls of him being a quitter, with back to back quit jobs in his last two fights, will probably follow him around as he recovers from surgery needed to repair a broken orbital bone. Incredulous experts and fans will continue to wonder aloud why he didn't just finish up the fight and hope to turn the tide with something big along the way.
Take into consideration, though, that when Brook suffered a similar fate, around his right eye, against Gennady Golovkin last September, the seriousness of the injury was drilled into his brain. Before surgery and after surgery he was likely told repeatedly about how fortunate he was to not have lost his sight and how one or two more well-placed shots may have been death blows to his ability to earn a living and live a normal life. So, when placed in that exact same situation just eight months later, he did what any reasonable human being would do. Facing permanent disability with a "good" eye that was now worse than the bad eye, failing vision, and a hard-charging killer ready to pounce on him, he took a knee and opted to fight another day. It's the sporting equivalent of an NFL team, four touchdowns down with five minutes to go, deciding to put in the back-ups, essentially conceding a loss in order to regroup for the next game.
However, boxing is so hopelessly lost in fake nostalgia and macho posturing that Brook "quitting" is enough to not only ruin his legacy and reputation, but also take much of the shine from Spence's accomplishment.
Smart fans will recognize all of this and give the proper level of respect to the fighters. To the fair-minded, Spence and Brook will both benefit from their efforts last Saturday.
Brook should take a nice, long, well-deserved rest and move up to a talent-heavy but utterly rudderless junior middleweight division.
Meanwhile, Spence gets to move forward and strive for what is now clearly a realistic goal- undisputed kingpin status in the talent-heavy and history-rich welterweight division.
For fans and media, the best advice would be to ditch the jaded and/or impossibly romanticized world view and appreciate what we may have on our hands. Just as Anthony Joshua inspired hope for a brighter boxing future, so does Errol Spence Jr.