By William Mackay: Matthew Hatton (42-5-2, 16 KO’s) didn’t get the title fight he was hoping to get against WBA welterweight champion Vyacheslav Senchenko and will have to settle for a fight against unbeaten #2 ranked WBO contender Kell Brook (26-0, 18 KO’s) on March 17th at the Moterpoint arena in Sheffield, Yorkshire, UK.

Hatton, 30, will get a nice payday in this fight but that’s about it. He’s out of his class and will likely take a beating for 12 rounds but he’s got little chance of winning it. We’ve seen in Hatton’s fights against Andrei Abramenka, Saul Alvarez, Yuriy Nuzhnenko, Gianluca Brando and Lovemore N’dou that Hatton can’t punch.

He’s a decent body puncher but those types of guys rarely win fights against quality opposition. You’ve got to have more than that, and Hatton doesn’t unfortunately. Brook, on the other hand, can punch a little. He’s not a huge puncher as we’ve seen in his fights against guys like N’dou, but he can wear you down with his short punches.

The way to beat Brook is to fight on the outside and jab him all night long. The weakness that Brook has is his arms are short and he’s got to get in close for him to land. If you can move and jab, Brook is as helpless as a kitten.

Hatton doesn’t have long arms, and isn’t much of a jabber. He’s mostly just an inside banger and medium range fighter. He’s the perfect opponent for Brook to further pad his weak record with in this fight. Hatton can try and slug it out but it probably won’t go too well for him. He’ll take too many head shots and will just end up getting embarrassed and beaten down. My advice is for him to go to the body and see if he can wear Brook down or take him out. He doesn’t have the jab to beat from the outside and has no power to take him out if he goes up top.