Brook must impress

By Boxing News - 10/25/2013 - Comments

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By Rachel Aylett: The big show of the weekend in the UK is Eddie Hearn’s Sheffield marathon, which is headed by local boy Kell Brook, 30-0 (20), who takes on his toughest opponent to date in Ukrainian Vyacheslav Senchenko, 34-1 (23). The fight is billed as an eliminator for the IBF welterweight title, for which Brook has been the mandatory contender for some considerable time now.

Brook’s proposed challenge to the IBF champion, Devon Alexander, has been one of those on-again, off-again affairs with both boxers suffering injuries resulting in postponements. One has to wonder though just how disappointed Brook and his team have been by these delays. They have not seemed to be in any particular hurry to challenge for the belt and the suspicion is that the camp is not overly-confident of gaining a victory over the highly talented Alexander.

Indeed, Brook’s career seems to have been put on the back-burner for some time now. When he was coming through the ranks, winning and defending the British title in 2008 and 2009, Kell genuinely looked like a future world star. Without any real major setbacks though, the perception of him has gradually changed over time. The problem seemed to start with Kell’s fight against extremely average Carson Jones in July 2012. Kell predictably dominated the first half of the fight, but then a nose injury he sustained at the midway point coincided with what seemed to be a complete collapse. Suddenly he was on the back foot and being chased around the ring by Jones. Brook survived the night to win a majority 12-round decision, but the rot had set in.

The excuses laid out afterwards were mostly related to Brook’s training regimen and his manner of weight-cutting. A strength and conditioning coach was brought in shortly afterwards in order that this would not happen again. Brook has looked good since, overwhelming over-rated Argentine, Hector Saldivia and easily beating Jones in a rematch. He now needs a sparkling performance on Saturday to put the memories of the first Jones fight completely to bed.

As for his opponent on Saturday, Senchenko is a good quality fighter who is a former holder of the WBA welterweight title. This title was almost bought for him though, as he never earned his shot and his title winning fight and all four defences he made were in his home town of Donetsk. He lost his title when veteran Paulie Malignaggi came to town and easily outboxed him for a stoppage win in the ninth round. To be fair to Senchenko, he did suffer a nasty eye injury in the early going and by the end of the fight was operating with vision in only one eye. It looked as though Malignaggi was on his way to outclassing him in any event. Senchenko, then, has never been world class, although he could be described as good European class.

This being the case, the threat posed to Brook on Saturday is relatively minimal. Senchenko boxed very well against Ricky Hatton to thwart Hatton’s comeback plans, knocking out “The Hitman” in round nine with a body shot. That was less than a pale shadow of the real Hatton though and not too much should be read into that performance. However, Senchenko did cope very well with the hostile atmosphere and certainly won’t freeze in Sheffield.

If Brook keeps to the form he has shown in his last two fights, it will be a torrid night for Senchenko. I think he is tough enough to go the distance, although wouldn’t rule out a stoppage victory for Brook in the last third of the fight. A score of something like 117-111 seems on the cards.

In the co-feature, Blackpool’s Brian Rose, 24-1-1 (7), tries to take another step towards a WBO title fight, when he fights an eliminator for that organisation’s title against Argentine, Javier Maciel, 27-2 (20). Truth be told, neither of these fighters can claim to be in world class at the moment. They are fortunate to be so close to fighting for a major belt. In fact, it feels as if Rose is being sneaked in through the back door, bypassing the normal route of European title before challenging for world honours.

Whatever the background, this should be the fight of the night. Wins for either fighter would be no surprise and it seems like a real toss-up. With these two being so well matched, and a very close fight being likely, whispers are being heard that if it goes the distance another hometown decision, a la Burns-Beltran, is highly possible. I hope this is not the case.

Rose’s best win is probably against Haitian-Canadian Joachim Alcine, which took place directly after Alcine had been blitzed in one round by middleweight Matthew Macklin. However, on that night Rose had a terrible struggle in which, for me, the fight was in the balance with Alcine coming on at the time Rose pulled the fight out of the fire with a stoppage in the final round. Brian subsequently failed to impress in his last fight against Alexey Ribchev, who is little more than a good journeyman but gave Rose an uncomfortable evening despite losing widely on points.

It is difficult to judge Macias. He has only fought outside his native Argentina once in his career, that being when he challenged unsuccessfully for the WBO middleweight title in Russia against hometown champion Dmitry Pirog. So even after 29 fights and at the age of 29, Maciel is still very much an unknown quantity on the world stage. Maciel had no difficulties whatsoever in going the distance with the hard-hitting Pirog. An inside the distance victory for Rose on Saturday is therefore highly unlikely. If Brian is to win, he will have to tough it out again – his lack of power means he is usually in hard, gruelling distance fights.

Rose is facing an opponent here who has a winning record and is used to stopping the vast majority of his opponents. Maciel comes to England still very hungry for success. On occasions, Rose has looked like an accident waiting to happen and as Maciel is clearly heavy-handed there is a chance that he could stop Rose. I think this just could be the night when Rose takes a step too far. After much deliberation then, I take Maciel to win a close points decision.

Super-middleweight sensation Callum Smith, 8-0 (6), continues his education with a 10-rounder against veteran Argentinian, Ruben Acosta, 27-8-5 (10). Once again for Smith the object of the exercise is to get someone in who can take him a few rounds. This is a decent try; Acosta looks like he comes from the typically tough mould of Argentine fighter, being stopped just twice in his 40 fights, both by good quality fighters, Robert Stieglitz and Anthony Mundine. Acosta has been the distance with excellent Hungarian light-middleweight, Karoly Balszay and, further back, fellow Argentine Mariano Carrera, all four of these opponents have been major championship belt holders in their time. He is used to fighting in good company then. However, Acosta is clearly now past his best and the losses have started becoming more frequent on his record. He’s still a very decent opponent for a fighter with only eight pro starts, but I can still see Smith taking him out somewhere around the halfway point. At stake here is the WBC International title, the holder of which generally receives a world ranking with that organisation. Assuming Smith wins, that would be a massive achievement for a novice pro, as he still is.

Out of the local lads on the card, middleweight Adam Etches has progressed the farthest, being 12-0 (10) to date in his pro career. He is currently the IBF Youth champion, for whatever that’s worth. On Saturday he defends that title for the first time against Brazilian, Alexandre Mendes, 10-0 (9). On paper, this looks like a showdown between two young, (22 and 23 years old, respectively) hot prospects. The important thing to note though is that, I repeat, Mendes is Brazilian. If you are Brazilian and can fight, you do MMA, you don’t do boxing. As the Americans might say, “do the math”. Don’t therefore look for any sort of test for Etches, but more likely yet another early blow out victory. Etches is at the point where he is just completing his third year as a pro. He now needs to be put under some sort of pressure by an opponent in order to find out what he’s really got. Unfortunately, this won’t be the night when that happens.

The bright spot on the undercard is reserved for the return of Birmingham’s hot prospect Kal Yafai after seven months out of the ring with an injury. The little super-flyweight star, who is 8-0 (6) as a pro, is up against Abigail Medina. Hang on, I know that female boxing is on the up, but this is ridiculous!! Of course, this particular Abigail is very much male and comes from the Dominican Republic via Spain. I must admit to not being familiar with him but a cursory glance at his record would indicate another early stoppage victory for Kal. Finally, Anthony Joshua is on the bill and has his second early knockout victory awaiting him against fellow Brit, Paul Butlin.

Rather than showcase the big stars from his stable, as he usually does, Eddie Hearn has stuffed the card with local fighters who will all sell tickets to the show. Does this indicate that Kell Brook’s popularity is on the wane in his hometown and that without the other Sheffield boys – the aforementioned Etches, Scott Jenkins and Sam O’Maison, Hearn would struggle to fill the arena? Due to the use of local talent, on paper it looks as though this show may not reach the quality of Hearn’s recent shows.

For fans watching on television in the UK, the action starts at 6 p.m. and is likely to go through until midnight. Be prepared for slow periods during the evening!

@RachelAylett1



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