By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn believes that his hand-picked opponent former WBA welterweight champion Vyacheslav Senchenko (34-1, 23 KO’s) will be the toughest challenge of unbeaten #1 IBF Kell Brook’s career this Saturday night at the Motorpoint Arena, Sheffield, Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
While many boxing fans see Senchenko as yet another safe fight that Hearn has picked out for Brook to pad his record with, Hearn is painting Senchenko with entirely different brush.
To Hearn, Senchenko, #8 IBF, #11 WBA, is a class fighter capable of giving Brook a lot of problems. For many boxing fans, they see Senchenko as a former paper champion who was exposed the first time he was put in with a decent fighter in Paulie Malignaggi. It is kind of tough to recognize the names of the fighters that Senchenko built hims impressive looking resume on.
I’ve seen many of the names on his resume before, but I always saw them as 2nd tier fighters, the whole lot of them. Senchenko beat Ricky Hatton last year, but this was Hatton coming off of a three year layoff and he was beating Senchenko through the first eight rounds of the fight before being stopped in the 9th round by a body shot from him.
Hearn told Sky Sports “He faces by far the toughest test of his career in Vyacheslav Senchenko. British fans will remember him for ending the career of Ricky Hatton…It’s a big, big test for Kell Brook and, of course, the No 1 position in the IBF is at stake…we could have sat back and had an easy fight.”
I hate to break this to Hearn but this IS an easy fight for Brook, or at least it should be. If Brook can’t easy whip Senchenko on Saturday night, then he needs to forget all about his dreams of ever beating IBF welterweight champion Devon Alexander, because he’s definitely a level up from Senchenko. What I saw of Brook in his recent 8th round TKO win over Carson Jones last July, I don’t see Brook as having the talent needed to beat Alexander.
I rate Brook as being below Randall Bailey, the guy that Alexander defeated last year in October to capture the IBF title. Fighting Bailey would be a real tough fight for Brook, and not just something his promoter Hearn is blathering about. You put Bailey in there with Brook, and we’d likely see Brook get sparked out.
Senchenko was already exposed by Paulie Malignaggi last year in April, and the victory wasn’t just because Senchenko suffered a cut. He was whipped completely in that fight, and it was never a competitive match-up at all. Words can’t describe how awful Senchenko looked in that fight. He was terrible to the extreme. That’s why I wasn’t surprised that a shot Ricky Hatton was able to have his way with Senchenko in the first 8 rounds of their fight last year before running out of gas and getting stopped in the 9th.
Senchenko would have lost that fight had Hatton fought a couple of tune-up bouts back to back to get himself in shape and ready for their fight. Instead, Hatton took off a dramatic amount of weight during training camp and then fought Senchenko with no tune-ups after being out of the ring for three years. It’s not surprising that Hatton was stopped. But it also wasn’t surprising to me that Hatton dominated Senchenko for the first 8 rounds of the figt, and the only reason why he could do that is because Senchenko is a mediocre fighter.
Comments are closed.