• Welterweight

Brook: I can stop Porter in the first round

Kell Brook will face Shawn Porter for the IBF welterweight title in California on Saturday © Getty Images

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Kell Brook believes his power could overwhelm Shawn Porter as early as the first round of Saturday's world welterweight fight in at the StubHub Center in Carson, California, on Saturday.

The 28 year old will be challenging for a world title for the first time two years after winning an eliminator for Porter's IBF belt.

The unbeaten Sheffield boxer has had to wait for his chance because of injuries and Porter opting for a voluntary defence against Paulie Malignaggi before facing him.

Brook was not overly impressed by Porter's fourth-round demolition of New Yorker Malignaggi or other recent wins over Devon Alexander and Julio Diaz.

"I've got no doubts about the result," Brook told ESPN of this weekend's bout. "I think I can get a stoppage from round one. If I clip him, I'm going to finish him.

"I hit hard, harder than his previous opponents, and I will be looking for it. He has beaten the likes of Malignaggi and Diaz, but their best days are behind them. Diaz and Malignaggi have been in hard fights recently so you can't look too much into those wins Porter had over them.

Kell Brook says Eddie Hearn pleaded with him to be patient before finally getting his world title shot © Getty Images

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"But I'm in my prime and I'm coming to win - that's a difference. I've been mandatory challenger for a long time so I deserve this shot and it's come at the right time for me.

"It played on my mind a bit, whether the fight was going to happen. I've had to wait two years for this fight to happen with people refusing to fight me, injuries to me and to the opponent.

"All kinds of things went through my mind - I was worried in a way that it wouldn't happen. But my promoter Eddie Hearn said 'you're going to get your shot' and 'be patient'.

"But if I was Shawn Porter or Devon Alexander, I wouldn't want to fight me. Alexander didn't want to fight me when he was champion and Porter didn't want this fight because he put it off last year.

"I'm thinking about what Lloyd Honeyghan did when he went over to Atlantic City and beat Don Curry when no-one expected him to.

"It will be great taking it away from them. They fancy Porter and just hearing them say I can't win is all the extra motivation I need. I like to prove people wrong and they will be proved wrong."

Porter, 26, sees his second defence as an audition to earn a mega-bucks fight with boxing superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr or a potential clash with British rival Amir Khan.

"He's been talking about facing Mayweather in the future but you don't really know what he thinks," said Brook of Khan.

"The winner of this will be in the frame for big fights, though, against the likes of Mayweather and it's a big carrot.

"I'm an unbeaten fighter and a fight against Amir Khan would be massive - you saw what Carl Froch-George Groves did at Wembley and we could do that."

Two of Brook's last three fights have been at a catch-weight above the 147 pounds welterweight limit.

However, Brook - a product of the same Sheffield gym as world champions Naseem Hamed, Johnny Nelson and Junior Witter - is confident he will not be sweating off excess pounds this week and is confident of stopping his undefeated rival.

"I've brought my weight down properly, so there won't be any crashing the weight in the last few days before the fight," said Brook. "There's no concern about my weight at all. I feel great and my weight is great.

"There's a slight disadvantage with it being in America but I've been over there to fight before so it's nothing new.

"With it being in America it just means that they and all the world will get to see the fight and me winning."

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