Kell Brook arrived in Las Vegas on Saturday morning, two full weeks before he is scheduled to fight Terence Crawford.

Brook is thankful that he left England for the United States when he did because Brook isn’t sure he would’ve been allowed to fly from his home country once the United Kingdom’s one-month, COVID-19 lockdown goes into effect Thursday.

British prime minister Boris Johnson announced a new national lockdown Saturday, when 21,915 new coronavirus cases and 326 deaths were reported in the UK. The UK’s second COVID-19 lockdown is scheduled to conclude December 2.

According to the lockdown’s guidelines, British citizens should avoid traveling abroad, unless it is for essential work.

Brook’s fight with Crawford on November 14 in Las Vegas obviously would’ve required Brook to travel outside of the UK for professional purposes. Brook told BoxingScene.com he isn’t certain, though, that the Crawford fight would’ve gone off as planned had he not left England when he did.

“I got here just at the right time, before this lockdown came in Sheffield and in England,” Brook said. “You know, because we’re in a full lockdown until December the 2nd. I’m so thankful that we got me visa, we did what we needed to do. We came out here to Las Vegas just in time.”

The 34-year-old Brook, a Sheffield native, was surprised when he learned that this pandemic caused another lockdown in the UK.

“We thought we were over it,” Brook said. “But it’s like anything – you know, what’s today is not always what’s tomorrow. And basically, it’s started to get worse and they announced there was gonna be a full lockdown. So, if you’re not on the ball, if you’re not on it, I could’ve got tied in with all that and not been able to fly. So, I’m just happy that we did what we did, and we got here when we did. We needed to climatize anyway in Las Vegas.”

The Crawford-Brook bout will be the main event of an ESPN telecast November 14 from MGM Grand Conference Center. Handicappers have established the 33-year-old Crawford (36-0, 27 KOs), of Omaha, Nebraska, as a 14-1 favorite to beat Brook (39-2, 27 KOs), who has lost only to unbeaten IBF/WBC welterweight champ Errol Spence Jr. (26-0, 21 KOs) and IBF middleweight champ Gennadiy Golovkin (40-1-1, 35 KOs). 

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.