By Scott Gilfoid: No. 2 ranked WBO welterweight contender Kell Brook (25-0, 17 KO’s) is taking a couple of steps backwards from his previous fight against Rafal Jackiewicz by facing little known 2nd tier fighter Luis Galarza (17-2, 13 KO’s) in a scheduled 10 round bout on the undercard of the December 17th Super Six tournament finals bout between WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch and WBA super middleweight champ Andre Ward at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Brook, 25, will be making his American debut for this fight and I suppose his promoter wants to make doubly sure that Brook impresses the American audience. But this is very sad to see. Brook is still facing 2nd tier opposition after seven long years as a pro. Brook is like the king of the ‘B’s’ because he’s build up quite an impressive looking recording defeating nothing but B level fighters. Recently, Brook defeated Jackiewicz, a fighter with a high ranking but one that was clearly badly inflated. Why Jackiewicz was ranked so high was anyone’s guess but it was in the end another safe fight for Brook. And now he’s not even fighting a fringe contender, he’s back to the B fighters. Will he impress the American fans with a win over the 29-year-old Galarza, maybe.

The casual boxing fan will probably think that Brook is beating a champion given the general lack of knowledge among the part time fans. However, Brook isn’t doing himself any favors by fighting easy opposition. It’ll all come back to him when he finally is forced to fight his first quality opponent in the future, and I see Brook getting badly beaten when that time comes due to his lack of a strong background in good competition.

I saw Galarza’s last fight against Paul DelGado last July, and I wasn’t impressed. Galarza looks slow, not particularly powerful, and clinches 24/7. In a lot of ways, he reminds me of many of the overmatched soft opposition Brook has built his unbeaten record on. I’m kind of astonished that Brook is fighting this guy, because I thought Brook was supposed to be going after top flight opposition. If that’s the case, why is he still fighting 2nd tier fighters? Sad, very sad.

Brooks’ promoter Eddie Hearn said this to Sky Sports News: “He’s [Galarza] a tough kid, but it’s an opportunity for Kell to go out and get American exposure and just have that final tune-up before the world title fight in March. When you see a superstar like Kell, you would want to take him over there, expose him to the U.S audience. His world title fight in March could well be in America.”

What is Hearn talking about? Brook has been fighting tune-ups for seven years. When does it end for goodness sakes? Take the pacifier out of his mouth already and put him on a diet of solids.

I’ve heard that Hearn is eying a title fight against IBF welterweight champion Andre Berto. It doubt it happens, because Berto doesn’t like to waste time fighting guys that no one has ever heard of in the U.S. Brook is a complete unknown and it would take a solid two years of fighting in the U.S before anyone would know who the heck he is. Berto isn’t going to waste time on that guy, and sure isn’t going to go to the UK to fight in Brook’s home country and take a chance of being on the receiving end of a home town decision. But if Brook does land a fight against Berto, Brook will get beaten badly. It won’t be a fight. Berto isn’t just a little bit better than Brook, he’s a lot better. It’s not even close. I think that’s a really stupid idea if Hearn does that. Just look at this way: Here you have a fighter in Brook that has been matched against 2nd and 3rd tier fighters for his entire 7-year pro career and now you’re all of a sudden going to throw him in with Berto? This will be a laugh. I can’t wait to see it. Brook is going to be peeled off the canvas in that one.