Brook success the highlight of decent weekend of boxing

There may well be three relatively big fights taking place this weekend, but the fact that two of them are largely one-sided battles in the heavyweight ranks, the onus is on Kell Brook to create a spectacle.

Brook needs a big performance not only for the sake of boxing followers, but also his own career path, as the path being plotted by promoter Eddie Hearn towards a welterweight title shot at present looks fairly uninspiring.

The Yorkshire fighter has built up a bit of a following on the British circuit, but bearing in mind he is now 26 and a winner of all 27 career professional fights, his reputation abroad has hardly left floor one.

Beating Amercan Carson Jones will do little to improve his position, apart from take him one step closer to a possible bout with Devon Alexander for the IBF welterweight crown at the end of the year.

Again fighting at home in Sheffield, Brook should have little trouble winning at 1/7 in the boxing odds and the 4/6 on offer that he stops Jones before the final bell should result in a pay-out.

The two heavyweight tussles are in completely different locations, with Wladimir Klitschko chasing a 16th successive victory when taking on Tony Thompson.

Klitschko is 1/33 to retain his WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, IBO and The Ring heavyweight titles in Berne and 1/6 to stop his opponent.

Thompson has already lost to Klitschko once before in 2008 when he was knocked out in the 11th round and the fact that he is now 40 is only likely to mean that this fight will be over even earlier.

The American has won all of his five fights by KO since his Klitschko defeat and will have to do the same again early if he is going to spring a major surprise here.

Thompson is 80/1 to secure a KO victory in the opening three rounds.

Back in Britain, Tyson Fury also takes on an American and he should have little trouble stopping Vinny Maddalone, who has not shown himself to be anything more than a club-level fighter to date with particular limitations.

Fury is 1/20 to retain his unbeaten record and it is hard not seeing him triumph by KO at 1/5.

The treble on the three favourites Brook, Klitschko and Fury all winning by KO can be backed at 13/10.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.