By Scott Gilfoid: Promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport has finally found an opponent for #1 IBF, #7 WBO, #10 WBC welterweight contender Kell Brook (31-0, 21 KO’s) to fight on March 15th and instead of it being a well known 147 lb contender, Hearn has dug up someone named Alvaro Robles (17-2, 15 KO’s) from Mexico.
Honestly, I’ve never heard of Robles before, and he’s not ranked in the top 15. Of course, Robles is Brook’s tune-up opponent, so that explains him being an obscure opponent without a top 15 ranking. But given that Brook has really fought mostly obscure opposition during his 10-year pro career, this fight is pretty much Brook sticking with the status quo.
Amir Khan got a laugh out of the Brook-Robles announcement, saying on his twitter site “Kell, you need to step up your opponents instead of facing Alvaro Robles, who no one has heard of. Does he even box? LMAO.”
It’s hard to disagree with what Khan is saying here, because I’ve never heard of Robles before, and I can’t quite understand how Hearn would even setup a fight like this. I mean, how do you ask the fans to pay to see Brook fight a guy like Robles on March 15th at the Echo Arena? The card will have Tony Bellew facing 37-yesar-old light heavyweight Valery Brudov, Callum Smith vs. TBA, Rocky Fielding vs. TBA, and Kevin Mitchell vs. Mikheil Avakyan, but there’s no interesting fights on the entire card, at least as far as I’m concerned. Those are all mismatches.
“Kell will be warming up for his IBF title shot against Shawn Porter with a fight in Liverpool on March 15,” Hearn said to Sky Sports. “I can reveal here that it will be against Mexican welterweight champion Alvaro Robles, who has 17 wins and two losses. If Kell wins that, Shawn Porter will have to defend his IBF world title against him this Summer.The only fight Kell would sidestep that for is Khan.”
Brook might as well have trotted out Matthew Hatton again to fight rather than Robles, because at least he would be getting a better opponent with a name that might interest some of the fans.
Brook has been facing weak opposition as long as I can remember. Look at his last 10 fights: Vyacheslav Senchenko, Carson Jones, Hector Saldivia, Carson Jones [again], Matthew Hatton, Luis Galarza, Rarfal Jackiewicz, Lovemore N’dou, Philip Kotey and Michael Jennings. These are like European level opposition for a EBU champ rather than a top world contender ranked #1 by the WBO. Brook should have been facing quality opposition years ago instead of fighting these guys. I don’t know what the hangup has been, but I see it as a failure to launch. Brook is going to be in a world of hurt when he does eventually fight Shawn Porter, because he’ll not be ready for the huge step up that he’ll be taking in the fight.
Robles has been blasted out by Antonio Pitalua and Jorge Silva in the last three years. His wins have come against little known opposition like Miguel Angel Lopez (16-19), Cristian Solano (28-20), and Julio Calderon Zavala (0-1).
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