By Dean Bain: Saturday night sees the return of another stacked card from Matchroom Boxing. Kell Brook, Brian Rose, Anthony Joshua, Callum Smith and Kai Yafai are all part of the main show along with local fighters Adam Etches, scott Jenkins and Sam O’Maison.
Matchroom are continuing to put together cards which makes fans want to get to the arena before the main event. I watch BoxNation as well as Sky Sports and to be honest any promoter who has had shows on BoxNation the cards are normally paper thin in my view. Matchroom have the main attraction, a solid chief support fight and then lots of prospects which normally include the Olympic kids. If you compare this coming Saturdays card to the Carl Frampton card last Saturday they are on different levels.
Now my predictions on how the main fights are going to go
KELL BROOK V VYACHESLAV SENCHENKO
Vyacheslav Senchenko is known in the UK as the man who ended Ricky Hatton’s career but was not very impressive in doing that. The former World Champion was losing on points before hitting Hatton with a body shot that he just couldn’t recover from. Thing is he was taken apart from Paulie Malignaggi who is known as a light puncher so I can’t see him being able to hold Kell Brook off. Brook and the Hatton that fought Senchenko are worlds apart, Brook has good movement, he is quick and can punch too and this is going to be far too much for Senchenko to handle
Prediction – Brook in rounds 3-6
BRIAN ROSE V JAVIER MACIEL
The light Middleweight division has some quality fighters including Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Carlos Molina, Austin Trout, Miguel Cotto and I guess at this moment you can say Floyd Mayweather Jr., but still Brian Rose finds himself in a world title WBO world title eliminator fight with Javier Maciel. Both have never found anyone with any credibility yet find themselves one fight from a world title fight. For me this is wrong and Rose is actually one British fighter that I don’t enjoy watching, yes he always gives his all but again is very limited in what he could do and would we soundly beaten by anyone in the top 5. Javier has fought all but 1 fight in his native Argentina which was in Russia and ended up being his only defeat.
Prediction – Rose by points
ANTHONY JOSHUA V PAUL BUTLIN
I am looking forward to following the career of Anthony Joshua, the 6′ 6″ Englishman who won gold for Team GB will take part in his 2nd pro fight against Paul Butlin who is 14-19-0. Butlin has been involved in the midlands area and International Masters heavyweight fights which shows his level. In his last fight He was KO’d by Scottish unbeaten hope Gary Cornish in round 5 and I’d expect the Joshua fight to be over a little earlier than that. Let’s not kid ourselves this is a fight to build up his unbeaten record without being in danger
Prediction – Joshua KO in round 1 or 2
CALLUM SMITH V RUBIN ACOSTA
Mundo is one for the future and in his 8 fights so far the last 6 have ended in the first round. We know he has power but I need to see him more tested to see how he can move around and how his chin will react to a solid shot. Thing is in his 8th fight he fought Patrick Mendy and for me that is a good level of fighter to be fighting in your 8th fight. Mendy has had a decent level of competition and Kenny Anderson only got a win via points. Matchroom would have been expecting a few rounds from that fight but had no answer for the power of Callum Smith. I will enjoy to watch Smith’s rise through the ranks. Rubin Acosta is a 35 year old from Argentina who has spend almost all of his career in his native land. He fought for the WBO world title back in 2010 where he was stopped in the 5th round by Robert Stieglitz. He has won 27 times but all against unknown fighters in south America, I don’t think he will last long in this fight and see this being defeat number 9 for Acosta
Prediction – Smith KO in round 1-2
KHALID YAFAI V ABIGAIL MEDINA
Khalid Yafai is a fighter I love to watch. He gives you a little of what we used to get from Naseem Hamed, good old entertainment. The super flyweight in only having his 9th fight after layoff from injury and hopefully can get 4 fights in over the next 6 months. He will be fighting Abigail Medina from Spain who has a record of 9-2-2 with 5 KO’s, in his 13 fights he has fought 12 with more loses than wins with the other fight a loss against Russian prospect Nikolay Potapov. Medina is not going to be much of a problem for Yafai and I expect him to win this with a stoppage
Prediction – Yafai by stoppage in rounds 5 or 6
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