By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten British welterweight contender Kell Brook (28-0, 18 KO’s) says he was offered up a title shot against WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley, but instead of taking the title shot and the guaranteed payday that goes along with it, Brook opted for the much easier fight against little known #3 IBF contender Hector Saldivia (42-2, 32 KO’s) on October 13th in their IBF welterweight eliminator bout at the Motorpoint Arena, Sheffield, Yorkshire, United Kingdom.

I’m trying to understand this move by Brook because it just looks like he dodged a tougher fight to take an easy one against Saldivia, who is only ranked in the top 15 by one sanctioning body, the IBF, and arguably deserv3es to be ranked in the 2nd tier some place. Did Brook dodge a hard fight against Bradley in order to take an easy one against Saldivia? Why would Brook to that?

Brook said to Matchroomboxing.com “The Bradley fight was put in front of me but I believe the mandatory position is the IBF is the right move. Eddie [Hearn] has worked hard to get me into this position and providing I beat Saldivia, I’ll be fighting for a world title at the start of 2013 and it will be on my terms.”

It sounds like Brook may not have had confidence that he could beat Bradley, because that’s the much, much better fight than facing the little known Saldivia just to get the chance to fight the winner of the Randall Bailey vs. Devon Alexander fight. Neither Bailey or Alexander are popular fighters outside of their own home towns. At least if Brook fought Bradley, Brook would be in the position to possibly get a fight against Manny Pacquiao, who happens to be ranked #1 by the WBO at this time.

Wasn’t Eddie Hearn aware of that? Brook would have been in the perfect spot to get a big money fight against Pacquiao if he had fought and beaten Bradley. To me, that’s the much better option than taking on a fighter that boxing fans have ever heard of in Saldivia just to get the chance to possibly fight the winner of the Alexander-Bailey fight. There’s no upside to fighting Bailey or Alexander compared to fighting Bradley. The Bradley fight leads to Pacquaio. Fighting the winner of the Bailey-Alexander fight leads to Jan Zaveck or Rafal Jackiewicz. What good is it to go after the IBF strap if there’s no upside other than a title milking option?

If Brook doesn’t like his chances against Bradley, then yeah, I can understand going after Saldivia. Yeah, I can definitely understand that. Also, the IBF has a ton of weak contenders ranked, so if title milking is something that Brook would like to do, then he’d be in good position to milk the IBF strap for ages against all the weak contenders that the IBF currently has ranked in their top 15. He’d still have to beat Saldivia and the winner of the Bailey-Alexander fight to start the milking profess. But it sure looks like Brook is going after the easier option to possibly start a long title milking reign if he can beat Saldivia and then Bailey or Alexander.