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Victory over Brook Underscores Urgency of Pac-Crawford Fight By Teodoro Medina Reynoso PhilBoxing.com Mon, 16 Nov 2020  While many sports scribes hailed Terrence Crawford's 4th round technical knockout victory over Kell Brook as another feather in his cap as an elite champion and a top pound for pound fighter, the American WBO welterweight champion and his promoter Bob Arum seemed unconvinced. And it is not hard to see why. For in beating the UK former WBA titlist, Crawford added another opponent in his list of victims who had prominence but not necessarily the resume to rightfully justify his claim as the best or at the very least among the best pound for pound boxers in the world today. Brook had been defeated twice before, also by stoppage by Gennady Golovkin and Errol Spence, both of whom are also in the pound for pound ranking though Crawford only took as much time as then middleweight king Golovkin in dismantling the formerly highly touted Briton. Of the fighters he faced and defeated on the way to his current lofty ranking, only his TKO win over then undefeated Cuban sensation Yuriorkis Gamboa in the lightweights could be considered as valid and legit. But Gamboa has since been also decisively beaten by Robinson Castellanos and Gervonta Tank Davis, both by knockout and recently on points by the rising Devin Haney at 135. Crawford went on to unify the titles at super lightweight and win the WBO welterweight crown but none of the fighters he fought and beat were of pound for pound caliber, not Viktor Postol or even Jeff Horn, the last man to arguably beat Manny Pacquiao in 2017. Crawford has now defended his WBO crown, which Pacquiao had held thrice before, six times but none of his title opponents had the proper credentials, including another faded Briton, Amir Khan whom he also stopped.  Crawford tear apart Brook in the four rounds Saturday in Las Vegas. Hence, the question lingered about his claim as the best welterweight and among the top pound for pound fighters today. This has prompted both Crawford and his promoter Arum to immediately after the Brook fight to declare that they are going all out to get either Spence or Pacquiao in the ring as early as April next year. Though Crawford would have no problem facing either man in title unification, Arum has openly declared preference for a fight versus Pacquiao, the WBA welterweight super champion. Arum acknowledges that the Pacquiao fight would be the bigger fight in terms of both revenue and historical significance, though the Filipino legend trailed both Crawford and Spence in the current overall welterweight and is out of the pound for pound rankings. To many people though Pacquiao remains the legit top pound for pound fighter of the world following the retirement of Floyd Mayweather albeit his disputed loss to Horn. He has bounced back from the Australian robbery of a loss and earlier defeat to Floyd with wins over Lucas Matthysse, Adrian Broner and erstwhile unbeaten and leading welterweight titlist Keith Thurman. Truth to tell, Pacquiao who was neck to neck with the now retired Floyd Mayweather in the pound for pound ranking for much of the past decade was only out of the pound for pound ranking because of the recent decisions of the Ring Magazine and other rating bodies to totally overhaul their lists almost without regard to lineage and age old criteria.  Pacquiao drops Thurman. Only Canelo Alvarez who is also a remnant of the Floyd-Manny era deserves his spot in the current pound for pound ranking with wins over fellow P4P entrants Golovkin and Sergei Kovalev. Most others on the list got their spots by fiat or mere perception of their superiority. The onus on Arum to make either fight is borne also of the fact that Crawford is also not getting any younger and that his contract with Top Rank is nearing its end. His failure to get either Spence or Pacquiao may trigger his prized ward to leave Top Rank. The Hall of Fame promoter said he is confident of finally sealing a Crawford fight versus Pacquiao next year, intimating that a Middle East country was near to hosting and bankrolling that fight if only the Covid 19 pandemic did not get in the way. We will see. The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.  |
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