Terence Crawford vs. Kell Brook is a very good match-up but many boxing fans seems to believe that Crawford will annihilate Brook quickly in the fight. They point to Brook´s losses against Golovkin and Spence jr. and thinks that he has nothing left in the tank. It is true that he took some punishment in those fights but against both Golovkin and Spence jr., he was doing very good for himself. He was the first person to show that Golovkin was human. The fight was a draw after 4 rounds with Golovkin. Against Spence jr. he started the fight very positively and was up on the scorecards after 6 rounds. He then faded from all the pressure Spence was putting on him and that was when he started getting hurt. Brook has previously beaten 8 southpaws and he usually has done very well against southpaws with the Spence fight being the only loss he has against a southpaw. We do believe that Crawford is the rightful favorite in this fight but the odds are way off in our view. Brook is given no respect by the oddsmakers who installed him as an 8/1 underdog. Let´s not forget, Brook has only lost to Golovkin and Spence jr and he did well in both fights as we said. He hasn´t looked that great after those fights but that could be due to a lack of motivation he had when he was up against lesser fighters. Both his eye sockets have heeled well and he seems confident that they will hold up to hard punches. Brook has showed us in his 3 big fights against Golovkin, Spence and Porter that his boxing skills are elite. He is a very good boxer and he is physically strong for 147 pounds. The one area of concern regarding how Brook will perform tonight is the fact that he is going up in this fight without his longtime trainer Dominic Ingle, who is a very good and experienced trainer. He seems to have handled this whole camp by himself or with his new team that we are not familiar with. At the scale Brook looked a little dry and drained while Crawford looked much fresher of the two. Brook to his credit, was able to make the weight limit on his first try and he looked in tremendous shape. It could be that Brook after all those camps that he had with Ingle and their whole team managed to do somewhat like he has been used to before regarding his training routines and sparring and he has a lot of experience. Brook is fast starter and Crawford sometimes is not. The few times that Crawford has been hurt in his career, has always been early in fights. Brook is the best and most powerful early in fights while he tends to fade the longer the fight goes on. Crawford gets stronger and stronger as the fight goes on. If it is that Brook gets tired in the 2nd half of the fight and starts to get sloppy with his defense, you can be sure that he will be stopped. We think that brook will do very good for himself in the first 6 rounds and depending on how the fight plays out, it is not of the question for him to win this fight. This is not a mismatch like some people believes. It is also not out of the question that he could hurt Crawford early if he lands clean but that has to happen in the first half in our view. Brook also has the possibility to win this fight on points if he puts in the performance of his career, he is capable of that. The problem is that when Crawford gets going and he finds the rhythm, he becomes a dangerous man. He is not content with winning a fight by decision, he wants to physically hurt his opponents and punish them. If Brook is relaxed and doesn´t gas out he might be able to prevent Crawford from ever getting to that comfortable place and then the fight will be very closely contested and could go either way. (sign in to view our prediction & pick)
Brook will start out very good as he usually does and the fight will be closely contested. The most likely thing to happen here is that Brook fades more and more as the fight goes on and Crawford takes over. Brook starts to take some very clean punches in the 2nd half and Crawford forces the stoppage. The pick is Terence Crawford to win in rounds 7-12 for a price of +220 (3.20 decimal odds)