By Edward Chaykovsky
Manchester legend Ricky Hatton is starting to slowly step across the street with his prediction for this coming Saturday's anticipated showdown.
He now feels IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (36-0, 25KOs) has a shot to pull off a major upset on Saturday night, when he steps in the ring with IBO/IBF/WBC/WBA middleweight world champion Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (35-0, 32KOs).
The fight, which takes place at the O2 Arena in London, will see Brook jump up by two weight divisions to take the fight at 160-pounds.
Hatton remembers when he pulled off his own major upset by stopping the heavily favored Kostya Tszyu before a wild Manchester crowd in 2005.
But there are major differences in this contest. Hatton was facing a fighter from his own weight division and Tszyu, while dangerous, was on the tail-end of his career. Coming into that contest, Tszyu had averaged one fight per year since 2001. Golovkin is in his primed and often tries to fight at least three times per year, if not more.
"It's Golovkin's toughest fight," Hatton told Sky Sports News HQ. "Golovkin fought some good men and that's how high I hold Kell Brook as a fighter.
"I think it will be his toughest test. It is a massive, massive, massive ask, I think you've got one of the best middleweights there's probably been ever, to be honest with you.
"You've got to put him up there with some of the best, given how destructive he's been. The fact he's going up two weights is a big, big ask but I think Kell will give him his toughest fight. Nobody thought I could beat Kostya Tszyu and I did do, so you can't say that it's an impossibility and Kell's not going to win.
"But I think we've got to fear the worst because he is a punching machine and he looks very, very heavy handed. Golovkin is the favourite at the end of the day, but it's not beyond the realms of impossibility."
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