By Chris Williams: Negotiations have started for a fight between Kell Brook and Terence Crawford for November 14 on ESPN. According to ESPN, Crawford (36-0, 27 KOs) will be defending his WBO welterweight title against the 34-year-old Brook, who hasn’t fought at 147 since his 11th round TKO loss to Errol Spence Jr in May 2017.
It helps Crawford that Brook no longer fights at 147, and will have to lose a lot of weight.
Kell is at the top of Top Rank’s list as far as the next opponent for the 32-year-old Crawford. With the pandemic going on, Brook is about as good as it gets. To get a better opponent than Brook would cost Top Rank a lot of money, and that’s not doable right now.
Brook will have a difficult time
If Brook isn’t completely weight drained from melting down to 147, he’ll give Crawford a lot of problems and maybe even beat him. It’s been years since Brook last fought at 147, and it might not be possible for him to down in weight without being drained.
Keith Thurman offered to take the fight Crawford, but he supposedly wants $10 million, and that’s not going to happen.
It’ll be interesting to know what Brook is getting for the fight. Unless Crawford-Brook is sold on ESPN pay-per-view as was the case with Crawford vs. Amir Khan, there’s not going to be a lot of money for Brook.
It would be a bad idea for Top Rank and ESPN to peddle the Brook fight on pay-per-view this year, as boxing fans are likely to be careful with their money due to the pandemic. However, this is a fight that wouldn’t sell even during a strong economy.
Brook isn’t a big name, and his career disappeared following his consecutive stoppage losses to Gennadiy Golovkin and Errol Spence Jr in 2016 and 2017. Although Brook exposed Golovkin, he suffered a right-eye injury.
In Brook’s next fight against Spence Jr in 2017, his left eye was injured, and he was out of action for a lengthy amount of time afterward.
Brook (39-2, 27 KOs) moved up to junior middleweight following his loss to Spence, and he’s been fighting in that weight class since then. Unless Top Rank is going to give Brook a break with the weight by letting him come in at 154, his chances of beating Crawford are slim and none.
Kell at the top of the list
At this point in Brook’s career, he’s too big to fight at 147, and he’ll be excessively drained to put up much of a fight against Crawford. That’s the whole point in Brook getting the fight. He won’t be a risk for Top Rank to have Crawford lose, as they’ve been trying to turn him into a star without matching him against dangerous opposition.
”Kell Brook is a free agent, and we’re discussing a Crawford fight with the Kell Brook people,” Top Rank boss Bob Arum said to ESPN. “That’s on top of our wish list.”
Brook looked good in his last fight in stopping junior middleweight Mark DeLuca in seven rounds last February. The battle took place in the 154lb division. If Brook were able to fight Crawford at 154, he would be at full power, and he might be able to steamroll through him. However, Top Rank isn’t going to let Brook fight Crawford at 154, as it would be too dangerous for Terence.
Going into 2016, the highly popular British welterweight Brook was on his way to stardom. He had beaten Shawn Porter by a 12 round decision in 2014 to win the IBF 147-lb title.
Eye injuries have stalled Brook’s career
In 2016, Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn offered him a fight against middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin. Chris Eubank Jr was in negotiations for the GGG fight, but Hearn seemed to lose patience with the talks, so he offered the match to Brook, who accepted it right away.
In hindsight, Brook should have said no, as he ended up suffering a broken right orbital bone in the second round of the fight. The fight was stopped in the 5th round, as Brook was no longer fighting back, and the late referee Marlon Wright had to step in to stop the contest.
Arum has been holding out hope that he can put together a fight between Crawford and superstar Manny Pacquiao for 2020, but he’s starting to realize that fight isn’t going to happen. He was hoping to place the Pacquiao vs. Crawford fight in the Middle East, but it hasn’t worked and likely won’t anytime soon.
Pacquiao has a lot more options available to him with the Premier Boxing Champions welterweights. So unless Arum makes Manny an offer that he can’t refuse, we’ll see him going in the direction of a fight against Mikey Garcia, and then perhaps Spence, Danny Garcia, Thurman rematch and possibly Shawn Porter at the end.
Arum giving up on Pacquiao fight
Crawford may get a fight against Pacquiao sooner or later, but it’s not likely to happen until he’s exhausted all the other options available to him against PBF fighters.
You can argue that Pacquiao had a lousy experience fighting one of Arum’s fighters Jeff Horn in 2017, and he might not be in a hurry to deal with another horrible experience after that.
For the boxing fans that don’t remember the Pacquiao-Horn fight, Horn roughed Pacquiao up and beat him by a questionable 12 round unanimous decision in July 2017 in Brisbane, Australia. Horn was fighting in front of his on fans. Why Arum chose to have Pacquiao, a massive star, fight in Horn’s backyard is unclear.
“I don’t think it’s going to be possible this year, maybe next year,” said Arum. about a figt between Terence and Pacquiao. “We’re working on it, we had the go-ahead to do it, but then the minister of health said not this year, look to do it next year.”
So instead of Crawford fighting the likes of Errol Spence Jr or Keith Thurman, we’ve seen him put in with the likes of Amir Khan, Jeff Horn, John Molina Jr, and Viktor Postol.
Crawford is coming off of a 9th round knockout win over Egidijus Kavaliauskas on December 14 in New York. The opponent left a lot to be desired, but he was still one of the best guys that Crawford has fought.
Most boxing fans would agree hat Crawford isn’t as good as his record would indicate. He’s unbeaten, but he’s never fought a dangerous opponent. The best name on Crawford’s resume is Viktor Postol, who would be utterly over-matched against the top tier welterweights.