By William Mackay: 30-year-old former EBU welterweight champion Matthew Hatton (42-5-2, 16 KO’s) unfortunately doesn’t have a whole lot of options in his bout on Saturday night against the unbeaten Kell Brook (28-0, 18 KO’s) at the Motorpoint Arena, Sheffield, Yorkshire, UK.

Hatton pretty much only has one option that’s to try and take the fight in close to work on Brook’s body the same way Hatton’s older brother former two-time world division world champion Ricky Hatton was able to defeat guys at close range. Matthew Hatton doesn’t have the foot and hand speed or the power to beat Brook in a medium to long range battle, and he’d likely get carded to ribbons if he tries to fight him like that.

Brook has the power advantage and he’ll give Hatton problems if he tries to exchange with him in an outside attack. The one area in Brook’s game where he’s not particularly strong is his inside fighting ability. He doesn’t punch well to the body and he doesn’t look good when he’s eating shots from opponents on the inside. Fortunately for him, he hasn’t had to fight too many pressure fighters with good inside fighting ability. That’s in large part to the soft matchmaking that Brook has benefited from by his different promoters, who have shielded Brook from the dangerous opponent and brought him a long even slower than WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. So, Hatton has a real chance in this fight if he can get on top of Brook and force him to fight an inside war that he’s not prepared for.

Brook will be looking to land his counter shots and pick Hatton apart slowly but surely until getting a stoppage. However, Brook is much less effective in a fight that is out of control. That’s where I think he’ll have problems in this fight.