In 2006, he won Ring Magazine's Knockout of the Year for his win against Zuri Lawrence and challenged for the IBF and IBO heavyweight titles.
Brock earned a degree in finance from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 1999 and took a job as a banker in the Bank of America.
He qualified at the 2000 Summer Olympics super heavyweight tournament after narrowly beating one-time conqueror T.J.Wilson in the qualification, but lost to Paolo Vidoz in the first round.
During the Olympics, he was a teammate of future world champions Jermain Taylor, Jeff Lacy, and Brian Viloria.
Etienne, once highly regarded prospect, was looking for a way to regain his stock after being knocked out by Mike Tyson and Fres Oquendo.
[5][6][7] Afterwards, Brock took a big step up in competition when he agreed to face Jameel McCline on 23 April, just three months after beating Etienne.
McCline, ranked No.8 heavyweight in the world by The Ring at the time, was coming off of a razor-thin split decision loss to Chris Byrd for IBF world heavyweight title in what was described as an entertaining fight, and was viewed as the favorite coming into the Brock bout.
[10][12] The bout went full ten rounds, with Brock being declared the winner by unanimous decision (UD), with scores 97–93, 96–94 and 96–93.
The fight was praised by critics, with prominent coach Teddy Atlas predicting a bright future for Brock in the heavyweight division.
Both fighters fought aggressively from the opening bell, with Brock seemingly doing the better work in the early rounds, going back-and-forth between combinations to the head and body and not allowing Bostice to fire back.
[20] Regarded by the public as an experienced journeyman with a record of 20 wins, 10 losses and 4 draws, Lawrence was coming off of upset victory over Jameel McCline.
The fight took place at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada, where Brock had previously defeated Jameel McCline, and was aired on HBO as part of the Boxing After Dark series.
With a 29–0 (22 KOs) record, numerous boxing insiders considered Brock as one of the most promising American heavyweight prospects at the time, while ESPN journalist Dan Rafael claimed that "a number of promoters" were interested in signing Brock who became a free agent on July 27.
In the opening rounds, Brock's economical but effective movement made Klitschko reluctant to throw punches, with Wladimir being unable to fully establish his rhythm.
In the fifth round, Brock opened a cut under Klitschko's left eye that started bleeding heavily in the sixth.
[36][37] After defeating two journeymen, Brock was given a spot in the 4-man elimination tournament to receive a shot at the IBF world heavyweight championship.
[39][40] Chambers appeared to have the upper hand in the fight, effectively using his hand speed and upper-body movement, and was declared the winner by split decision, with two judges scoring the bout 115–113 in favor of Chambers, while the third judge had the same score but in favor of Brock.
As a result of botched surgery to repair the damage in December 2007, Brock became legally blind in his right eye, and forced to retire permanently from the sport of boxing.