By William Mackay: Unbeaten welterweight contender Kell Brook (26-0, 18 KO’s) is expected to announce his next fight against fringe contender Matthew Hatton (42-5-2, 16 KOs’) on Monday in a press conference. The fight will be taking place at the Motorpoint Arena, Sheffield, Yorkshire. UK. It’s considered all but done at this point, and will reportedly be called “The Battle of the Roses.”

Brook feels that the Hatton fight will be followed by a world title bout. Brook will likely fight for the vacant International Boxing Federation (IBF) welterweight title in his second fight in 2012, likely against unbeaten Mike Jones. That’s going to be a very tough fight for Brook because he’s a lot smaller than the 6’0” Jones and Brook showed a vulnerability to right hands in his last fight against Luis Galarza last month in Brook’s 5th round TKO win.

Jones hits too hard and if he’s allowed to land his right hand all night long, Brook won’t last very long. As it is, he’s had poor preparation for a fight of that magnitude and Hatton is a bad step up to a fight like that. You can call Hatton a step down from Galarza.

Brook, an eight year pro, is supposed to be stepping up against a big name opponent for this fight but it looks as if his promoter came up short and had to settle for the 30-yer-old Hatton. Sadly, this is considered a big fight for Brook, whose career has been brought along at a glacial pace. If Brook fails to step up after this fight then it’s hard to understand what the problem is.

Brook may need to dump his current promoter if they can’t get him fights and move to the United States so one of the big time promotional companies like Golden Boy Promotions and Top Rank can find fights for him. He’s been fighting for too many years now to be still wasting his time against fighters of the caliber of Hatton. This is test that Brook should have been five years ago, not in his 8th as a pro.