There are at least four elite welterweights Terence Crawford would prefer fighting over Kell Brook.
The unbeaten WBO welterweight champion told IFL TV during an interview posted to its YouTube channel Saturday that he would want to face, in order, Manny Pacquiao, Errol Spence Jr., Danny Garcia and Keith Thurman ahead of boxing Brook. If any of those four fights cannot be made next, then Crawford would welcome a fight against England’s Brook.
Bob Arum told BoxingScene.com last week that he is exploring the possibility of making a Crawford-Brook bout whenever the COVID-19 pandemic ends and fights can be scheduled (https://www.boxingscene.com/bob-arum-brook-quit-against-crawford-way-khan-quit--148040). Crawford would want a Brook fight to take place in the United States, despite that the former IBF welterweight champion is a popular boxer in the United Kingdom.
“I don’t know all the details yet,” Crawford said. “I guess, you know, he’s interested in the fight, and Bob Arum’s interested in the fight. And if we can’t none of the other top welterweights in the division, and that’s the fight that we have to take, then that’s the fight that we have to take. And, you know, as far as me going over there, I’ll make him come over here, being that I’m the champion and he gotta come over here.”
Sheffield’s Brook (39-2, 27 KOs) has lost only to IBF middleweight champion Gennadiy Golovkin (40-1-1, 35 KOs) and Spence (26-0, 21 KOs). Kazakhstan’s Golovkin and Spence, of DeSoto, Texas, stopped Brook in back-to-back bouts in September 2016 and May 2017.
Each of the 33-year-old Brook’s past three fights have been contested within the junior middleweight division. Brook is confident, though, that he can come back down to the welterweight limit of 147 pounds for a shot at Crawford’s crown.
Crawford saw Brook in person during fight week before the Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder WBC heavyweight championship rematch February 22 in Las Vegas.
“I just told him I’m gonna f--k him up if we ever fight,” Crawford said.
The 32-year-old Crawford (36-0, 27 KOs) was tentatively scheduled to return to the ring June 13, but his next appearance has been pushed back to an unspecified date due to the coronavirus crisis. In his most recent bout, Crawford beat his mandatory challenger, Lithuania’s Egidijus Kavaliauskas (21-1-1, 17 KOs), by ninth-round technical knockout December 14 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.