Terence Crawford’s defense of the WBO welterweight championship against former IBF titleholder Kell Brook is in the home stretch, according to reports from The Athletic and Yahoo Sports. Last week Top Rank president Todd DuBoef revealed that a bout between Crawford and Brook was in advanced conversations and that Nov. 14 was the date they were looking to land on.
The Athletic’s Mike Coppinger had reported that the fight would likely take place either in Las Vegas or Omaha, though a source told Yahoo’s Kevin Iole that the United Kingdom remained in the running to stage the title fight. If Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn was able to bring the fight to the U.K., however, the chances of a ticket-paying crowd took a hit with the recent increase in COVID-19 restrictions. It remains to be seen how many spectators U.S. promoters can get into a stadium for any cards this winter and beyond.
Coppinger wrote that Crawford will earn upward of $4 million in the fourth defense of his 147-pound title, sources said. Brook will earn around $2 million. Iole posted on Thursday evening that a source confirmed that a welterweight title bout between champion Crawford and challenger Brook is in the home stretch, though it is not finalized.
The champion was last in action on Dec. 14 of last year, knocking out Egidijus Kavaliauskas of Lithuania in Round 9 of his third successful defense of the title he won from Jeff Horn in 2018. Prior to that, he stopped Brook’s domestic nemesis Amir Khan in the sixth on April 20, 2019. Brook, meanwhile, who will be a long shot outsider in his fourth challenge of a defending world titleholder, bounced back from consecutive defeats to Gennadiy Golovkin and Errol Spence Jr. with three straight non-title victories, all in his home town of Sheffield.
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