By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten welterweight contender Kell Brook (28-0, 18 KO’s) says he’s going to be making an announcement this Monday about his next fight on October 20th at the Sheffield Arena.

There’s no real mystery about who Brook’s going to fight because his promoter Eddie Hearn has been pretty transparent about wanting to match Brook against the #5 IBF contender Hector David Saldivia (42-1, 32 KO’s) rather than looking to put Brook in a straight title shot.

Hearn wants Brook to become the International Boxing Federation 147 pound mandatory challenger so that he can get a better financial deal and also to improve his chances of getting a title shot sooner rather than later. Whatever the case, it may end up just being a one and done type of affair even if Brook does get past Saldivia to get a title shot against the winner of the Randall Bailey vs. Devon Alexander, because honestly Brook doesn’t match up well either of those guys.

All you need to do is take one look at Brook’s life and death 12 round majority decision victory over Carson Jones last July to tell you that Brook doesn’t have the talent to hang with the very best guys in the division. I scored that fight a draw, and Brook very, very lucky he wasn’t knocked out in the 12th because he was literally knocked silly by Jones.

Had the referee not stepped in to give Jones a long warning in the last seconds of the fight when he was trying to finish Brook off, I think Jones would have scored a one punch knockout. But it’s interesting to see the excuses that Brook’s promoter Hearn has made for Brook’s dreadful performance in that fight. He blamed it on stamina issues. While that may be true in part, it’s not the real reason why Brook got spanked in the last six rounds of the fight.

The real reason is because Brook can dish it out but he can’t take the punishment in return. Sure, Brook is basically an eight round fighter. I saw that straight away when I watched him fade after the 8th round in his mismatch against Matthew Hatton, but I don’t think that’s something that Brook will ever be able to change.

I mean, if he doesn’t have the stamina to fight 12 rounds bouts at 25, then how in the world will that improve as he gets older? It won’t. He’s going to get worse. Pretty soon he’ll probably be a six round fighter and will totally collapse in the second half of his fights.