By Allan Fox: Matthew Hatton (42-6-2, 16 KO’s) was full of admiration for undefeated Kell Brook (27-0, 18 KO’s) after losing a 12 round unanimous decision to him last night in a one-sided fight in front of a large crowd of 9000 fans at the Motorpoint Arena, Sheffield, Yorkshire, United Kingdom. Hatton surprisingly sees the 25-year-old Brook as the best opponent of his career, better even than the hard-hitting WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez, who beat Hatton handily by a lopsided 12 round decision last year in March.

Hatton told the sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk “He’s the best fighter I’ve faced…I think definitely a future world champion…I don’t think things would get worse than the first round. I was wrong about that. He was hard to hit. And I think he had a magnet attached to my nose. He couldn’t miss it to be honest…He made me think twice about coming forward.”

It’s interesting to note that Hatton rates Brook over the then 20-year-old Alvarez, because few boxing fans would likely agree with that. Alvarez is much more powerful than Brook with a bigger frame and arguably better boxing skills. Perhaps Hatton sees Brook as being better because Alvarez fought without much passion in the fight. He didn’t have a lot of emotions like Brook did last night, and he wasn’t stepping it up the way that Brook clearly was in trying to beat Hatton. Alvarez was content to use Hatton as a punching bag but he really didn’t fight with any enthusiasm because it was such a one-sided bout.

The scores for last night’s Brook-Hatton fight were 118-109, 119-108 and 119-107. Compare those scores to the scores that the 20-year-old Alvarez had for beating Hatton last year: 119-108, 119-108 and 119-108. Keep in mind, Alvarez lost a point for hitting Hatton on the break in the 7th round. If not for that point deduction, it would have been 120-107 across the board for Alvarez.