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Marcus Richardson: Undefeated welterweight contender Kell Brook (28-0, 18 KO’s) recently chose not to take an important fight against WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley in order to fight Argentinian Hector Saldivia (41-2, 32 KO’s) in an IBF welterweight eliminator bout on October 20th at the Motorpoint Arena, Sheffield, Yorkshire, United Kingdom. Brook unbelievably chose not to fight Bradley for his WBO title just so that Brook could fight in risky IBF eliminator with the winner of that fight getting a shot against the winner of this Saturday’s fight between Randall Bailey and Devon Alexander.
Brook is talking about wanting to retire if he doesn’t win this fight on Saturday night against Saldivia. Of course, Brook obviously wouldn’t retire if he were to get beaten by Saldivia and even if he did retire, it would likely be one of those boxing retirements that mean absolutely nothing because the fighter or fighters often come back months later out of boredom or a need for money.
Brook said to thesun.co.uk “People keep saying I have talent, so if I can’t get rid of guys like Saldivia then I don’t deserve to be at this level.”
Brook shouldn’t be so hard on himself. If he loses to Saldivia, it won’t be the end of the world or the end of his boxing career. He can still work his way back into title defense in the near future because of his youth. Brook is coming off of a hard fight against Carson Jones last July where Brook really didn’t look very good. He won the fight but he probably lost more fans than gained. Jones is a good fighter and I rate him and Saldivia about the same in terms of power. If Brook couldn’t show that he was better than Carson Jones then it’s probably not realistic to assume that he can do that against someone like Saldivia.
