By Scott Gilfoid: British welterweight Kell Brook (31-0, 21 KO’s) survived a close call in the 4th round to stop former WBA welterweight champion Vyacheslav Senchenko (34-2, 23 KO’s) in the 4th round on Saturday night in an IBF welterweight eliminator bout at the tonight at the Motorpoint Arena, Sheffield, Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
Brook knocked Senchenko down in the 3rd round with a right hand, but was unable to finish him. Senchenko was throwing shots wildly landing some really big punches. In he 4th, Senchenko caught Brook with a perfect right hand that staggered him. Brook was in bad shape for a while but Senchenko was unable to land another big punch. Moments later, Brook caught Senchenko with a big right hand that put him on the canvas face first. He was able to get up but was staggering all over the ring causing the referee to half the fight.
With this win, Brook is now the mandatory challenger for IBF welterweight champion Devon Alexander. Based on what In saw tonight, I don’t give Brook any chance of beating the much faster, slicker and hard to hit Alexander.
It’s going to be all but impossible for Hearn to set up a fight between Brook and Khan or Broner. There’s just no upside for those guys to fight Brook yet until he proves that he can beat a good fighter. You can’t really count Senchenko into that category because he only fought Paulie Malignaggi before this and he was stopped. Malignaggi can’t crack eggs and he still stopped Senchenko. Brook is going to have to beat Alexander, which I don’t think he can do after watching this performance tonight, and then Broner and Khan will start thinking about a fight against him.
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2012 Olympic super heavyweight gold medalist Anthony Joshua (2-0, 2 KO’s) stopped an over-matched 37-year-old journeyman Paul Butlin (14-20, 3 KO’s) in the 2nd round
Joshua nailed Butlin with a left-right combination at the start of the fight to put him on the canvas. Butlin staggered to his feet with a bad cut over his left eye. Joshua then nailed Butlin with a handful of shots leading to his corner throwing in the towel to have the fight halted.
It looked like the 24-year-old Joshua was pushing his shots. They weren’t being throw crisply and it looked like he was just pushing the punches and it reminded me a lot of watching the hulking British heavyweight Larry Olubamiwo push his shots due to his lack of hand speed and the amount of muscle. Just no explosiveness that you would normally see from a big heavyweight. I can’t say I was impressed at all in watching Joshua. He’s too slow, his shots lack power and he’s too easy to hit.
Joshua will be back in the ring on November 14th against an opponent still be determined. Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn says he doesn’t have a clue who to put in with Joshua. You know what that means, don’t you? It means that he’ll likely be dragging in another poor opponent to match against Johsua.
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Other boxing results:
Brian Rose SD 12 Javier Francisco Maciel
Adam Etches KO 1 Alexandre Mendes
Callum Smith KO 6 Ruben Eduardo Acosta
Khalid Yafai pts 6 Abigail Medina
Scott Jenkins TKO 5 Antonio Rodriguez
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