Welterweight Kell Brook (31-0, 21 KO’s) defeated 36-year-old Vyacheslav Senchenko (34-2, 23 KO’s) by a 4th round TKO tonight on Saturday night in an IBF welterweight eliminator bout at the Motorpoint Arena, Sheffield, Yorkshire, United Kingdom. Brook knocked Senchenko down twice in the fight, once in the 3rd and a final time in the 4th. Senchenko was too hurt to continue after he staggered back to his feet in the 4th.
Brook survived a scare in the 4th when he was hurt by a long right hand to the head that sent him scurrying to the ropes. Brook quickly recovered and came back to drop Senchenko with a right hand.
Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn says he would like to match Brook against Amir Khan or Adrien Broner. If not, then he’ll be looking to match Brook against IBF welterweight champion Devon Alexander next.
Brook knocked Senchenko down in the 3rd round with a jab followed by a big right hand to the head. Senchenko got back to his feet and was in bad shape. Somehow he was able to survive the round but it was really close though.
In the 4th round, Brook seemed to forget about Senchenko’s own power as he rushed forward and got caught with a big right hand that caused Brook’s knees to go weak. However, instead of going after the hurt Brook like he should have, Senchenko stayed on the outside and kept throwing one punch at a time. This allowed Brook to come back and drop him with a right hand.
Senchenko had previously been stopped by Paulie Malignaggi in the 9th round last year in April. That was arguably the only good opponent that Senchenko had faced during his career before facing Brook. The rest of Senchenko’s resume is filled with little known opposition that you can’t really call world class or even close to world class. That’s kind of sad to say considering that Senchenko was the WBA welterweight champion from 2009-2012, but it just goes to show you that with the way that each division is watered down with the four different world titles, it lets weaker fighters to capture world titles and hold onto them for a considerable amount of time.
I don’t know what you can get from this win for Brook because we’re talking about a former champion that was stopped last year by the light hitting Malignaggi in a fight that Senchenko was totally dominated in. I don’t know that Brook will be able to do the same thing against Devon Alexander that he did tonight because Alexander is so much faster than Senchenko and he’s better defensively. That fight would obviously be in the United States and not the UK, which would make it more difficult for Brook because he’s fought pretty much his entire career in front of his home fans in the UK.
Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn said he’s open to matching Brook up against WBA welterweight champion Adrien Broner or Amir Khan. The chances of either of those fights happening are pretty much zero. Brook is an unknown in the United States, so Broner won’t fight him. Khan won’t fight him either because he’ll likely be facing Floyd Mayweather Jr. next.
