Kell Brook will look to get his career back on track following back-to-back defeats as he competes in his third weight-class in as many contests on March 3rd.
Brook took an audacious gamble last year, stepping up two divisions to take on Kazakh smashing machine Gennady Golovkin for the IBF and WBA middleweight titles. His toss of the dice didn’t pay off, however, as the iron-willed, adamantium-chinned Golovkin eventually walked down the faster more mobile Englishman and battered him until his corner threw in the towel in the fifth round. Brook suffered a fractured right orbital bone in the fight that subsequently required surgery.
When he returned to action in May of this year, Brook was back down at welterweight, where he still held the IBF title, and he faced yet another tough assignment in the form of talented American Errol Spence Jr.
Unbelievably, Brook suffered yet another broken eye-socket, this time on the left side of his face, and was stopped in the eleventh round of an enthralling affair.
In June, Brook underwent another procedure to repair the damage done to his left orbital bone.
After losses at both welterweight and middleweight, Brook is hoping that super-welterweight will prove to be a sweet spot for him. He has long struggled to make the welterweight limit of 147lbs and he seems a tad small for 160lbs, so 154lbs might be just right.
Brook’s opponent for the return outing, which will take place at the FlyDSA Arena in his hometown of Sheffield, will be former European super-welterweight champion Sergey Rabchenko(29-2).
He's back! @SpecialKBrook returns to the @SheffieldArena on March 3 v Sergey Rabchenko in his 154lb debut live and exclusive on @SkySportsBoxing #RiseAgain ?? pic.twitter.com/DOCW5jODbj
— Eddie Hearn (@EddieHearn) December 11, 2017
The United Kingdom has been a happy hunting ground for Rabchenko in the past. The Belarusian is 7-0 in the U.K having fought in a host of different venues, from small halls like the Deeside Leisure Centre in Queensferry, Wales and the Walsall Town Hall to the infinitely more glamorous Manchester Arena. Among his victims during that run were Martin Concepcion, Bradley Pryce, Brook’s former gym-mate Ryan Rhodes and Frenchman Cedric Vitu.
Rabchenko’s only losses came to Australia’s former WBA super-middleweight champion Anthony Mundine in Melbourne and hard-hitting American Tony Harrison in Brooklyn. Harrison is the only man ever to stop Rabchenko.
Rabchenko has himself amassed 22 stoppages of his own in 29 wins.
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