By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten welterweight contender Kell Brook (28-0, 18 KO’s) was pleased to hear that Ricky Hatton is interested in fighting him, and Brook, #2 IBF, #3 WBA, #5 WBO, is hoping he can fight both Hatton and Amir Khan in the near future. However, Brook has an IBF welterweight eliminator bout coming up this month on October 20th against #3 IBF Hector David Saldivia (41-2, 32 KO’s) at the Motorpoint Arena, Sheffield, Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
Brook has to win this fight so that he can become the mandatory challenger for IBF welterweight champion Randall Bailey. I hope for Brook’s sake he isn’t looking past the 28-year-old Saldivia because that would be a fatal mistake for Brook to be making at this point, especially after his god awful performance last July in winning a very questionable 12 round majority decision over American Carson Jones. Brook is a good six round fighter, but he doesn’t have the stamina to beat the good fighters, as we saw in the Carson Jones fight.
The last person that should be looking past Saldivia is Brook, who showed that he’s no better than Carson Jones. If anything, Brook should be on his hands and knees praying that he doesn’t run out of gas in the Saldivia fight and end up taking another beating. If Brook can’t beat Saldivia then he won’t get the Bailey vs. Devon Alexander winner, and he can also pretty much forget all about a big money fight against Hatton.
Brook said to Sky Sports News “The fans need to see all of us fight, Ricky Hatton and Amir. Put it on in a big stadium and do a mega event for the fans in Britain.”
Sounds good except for one thing. Brook will never beat Bailey or Alexander, so it’s kind of irrelevant about Hatton wanting to fight him. Hatton isn’t going to fight a guy that was knocked cold by Bailey or Aleaxander, you can bet on that.
Brook is working on his diet and conditioning for the Saldivia fight after running out of gas in his last two fights against Matthew Hatton and Carson Jones. I first noticed that Brook faded in the Hatton fight, and I knew right then and that Brook would have problems once he fought someone with a pulse. Sure enough, Brook was completely gassed by the 6th round in his next fight against Carson Jones last July and took a terrible beating. That looked like a loss to me for Brook, but the fight took place in the UK, so I wasn’t surprised that he got the win.
I don’t expect his conditioning to get any better for the Saldivia fight no matter what Brook does. That’s going to continue to be a problem for him for the remainder of his career. Instead of seeing it as a negative, Brook should try and win all of his fights in six rounds, because after that he’s going to take a beating in his fights.
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