Terence Crawford blew away what was supposed to be his stiffest competition to date, the former Welterweight champ Kell Brook. Brook had been coming off a couple of tough loses to Errol Spence Jr as well as Gennady Golovkin (a fight most people knew he should not have taken) and looked to prove to many that he isn’t washed up or permanently damaged from a pair of busted orbital bones suffered in those fights. Well, that didn’t happen.

Brook started the fight off well. Pegging Crawford with jabs and counter-punches in the first 3 rounds. He looked fairly sharp and fast with his hands. He didn’t show any signs of being intimidated by Crawford and he wasn’t gun-shy. He stood his ground. Then the inevitable struck.

Crawford landed a straight right hand that Kell Brook pretty much ran face first into, and he would not let him recover. Book stumbled to the ropes and referee Tony Weeks promptly gave him his count. From that point you could see that Crawford had every intention of ending this, as Kell Brook still looked obviously shaken and dazed by the phantom punch. Crawford mauled his ass and the bout was stopped.

Initially I felt it may have been a quick stoppage (I’m usually in the camp of letting allowing a fighter to go down and few times before calling the fight), but after seeing the replay, it was clear that Tony Weeks was trying to save Kell Brook for taking damage that he was in no stage to fend off. I guess that’s why I’m not a referee.

I have to admit, I thought Kell Brook would last longer than the one legged dude Crawford fought last, but that wasn’t the case. All those who were saying Kell Brook is washed may have a point. I didn’t think the shot he took should have gotten him in so much trouble, because it was pretty much a stiff jab. So maybe GGG and Spence took the last bit of starch out of Kell Brook. Never the less, Terence Crawford deserves all his praise and the argument for him being p4p #1 don’t sound all that crazy at the moment.

The question remains, who’s next?