Brook impresses on US debut

Sheffield's world ranked welterweight Kell Brook showed off his offensive skills during a fifth round stoppage of overmatched Puerto Rican Luis Galarza on the Froch-Ward undercard in Atlantic City last night.

Galarza had an impressive paper record of 17-2 but had been selected to allow Brook to make a statement on what was his US debut. Both men did their job in that Brook rattled home a variety of impressive punches whilst Galarza went out to win and proved himself tough, durable and proud.

Indeed, when referee Alan Huggins stepped in to rescue him at 1:38 of the round after he'd shipped a series of head punches which resulted in him sitting on the middle rope, Galarza protested and his desire to continue was obviously sincere.

However, it was a timely intervention.  

The Puerto Rican did have his moments of success and landed flush on Brook's chin on a couple of occasions in the bout.  This might have proved a surprise to those observers who don't know 'Special K' very well and assume he must be elusive simply because he once shared a gym with Naseem Hamed.  

In fact, his defence is the one thing which Brook needs to work on; he has a lot of weapons in his attack and showed many of them last night.

Such is the quality at the very top of the world welterweight division that Brook will have a trickier path to the top than normal.  The premier league fighters (Mayweather, Pacquiao) are out of reach and it's doubtful that fighters a class below these (Berto, Ortiz, Mosley) would give him a fight.

It's Eddie Hearn's job to get Brook a world title match in 2012; once he's got a belt, he'll have a bargaining chip to bring some bigger names to the negotiating table.