By: Waqas Ali
Former two-time world champion Amir ‘King’ Khan is on the loop hole for a potential clash with either American Terence Crawford or domestic rival Kell Brook.
Khan, 32, who last fought back in September against Samuel Vargas, has opted the probable option of going for Crawford more than Brook.
Crawford, whose record stands at 34 victories and zero defeats is a three-weight world titlist and has had two wins in the welterweight division already.
The same division Khan (33-4) has been fighting in for the past four and half years.
Speaking to Express Sport in early December, he stated: “We’ve negotiated a lot at the moment and we are close to getting it done.
“But there are other fights out there at the moment, like pound-for-pound champions, that is on the table for me.
“And I think that’s a fight which might never, ever come in my lifetime again. The pound-for-pound title is back in the welterweight division.
“It’s Crawford. Crawford has the pound-for-pound title and I’ve got that fight right in front of me, so I want to take that one. It’s either that or the Kell Brook fight.”
Both fighters are virtuous stylistics fighters but the questions that need to be asked are: Who would be the bigger draw and who is the bigger threat?
With Crawford, 31, aka ‘Bud’ he has a reach of 74” and a height of five feet 8 inches with a knockout ratio of 74%.
In his last 10 bouts, eight of them were KO/TKOs.
Crawford’s boxing style consist of speed, power and footwork. He uses those assets very well including loading up his combinations and keeping the distance at long range.
He also switches stances every now to provide activity on both angles of conventional and southpaw.
His resume of competitive competition include Ricky Burns, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Raymundo Beltran, Viktor Postol, Julius Indongo, and Jeff Horn.
Only fought once outside the United States, when defeating Ricky Burns for the WBO lightweight title in March 2014 in the UK.
Brook, 32, has a record of 38 wins and two losses. His reach stands at 69 inches and with a height of five foot nine.
The Pride of Sheffield’s style contains speed, agility and balance. His level of competition include Lovemore Ndou, Vyacheslav Senchenko & Shawn Porter. All three he won against.
Two high levelled competition he did lose to were Gennady Golovkin and Errol Spence Jr.
With Porter however it was quite competitive and to Brook’s credit he utilised his jab well in order to keep the fight at distance and countered effectively.. Brook landed 158 of 441 punches – 36% connect rate.
After losing to Spence Jr at the welterweight division, Brook decided to move to junior middleweight where he felt was the right decision.
With a recent win over Michael Zefara, it raised the question of Brooks’ capability and style of wonder in the 154 weight division.
No doubt in anyone’s mind particularly the British fans, selecting Brook would be a huge pay-per-view draw. It could possibly land in one of the biggest domestics bouts in history.
Britain is no stranger when it comes to historical domestic clashes.
Michael Watson vs Nigel Benn
Chris Eubank vs Michael Watson 1 & 2
Chris Eubank vs Nigel Benn 1 & 2.
Chris Eubank vs Carl Thompson 1 & 2
Frank Bruno vs Lennox Lewis
Just to name a few.
Eddie Hearn, Brooks’ promoter, made it public that he had offered Khan £8m flat fee, plus an upside of the revenue to fight Brook.
The offer was made a week after Top Rank offered Khan £3.9m [$5 million] to face Crawford.
So by analysing the evidence upfront it would make sense to make the Brook fight happen. However with Crawford, Khan could potentially win the WBO belt from Crawford should the bout take place.
Therefore it is my belief that the Crawford is dubbed and rightfully should be as the bigger threat than Brook.
Crawford has more tools of weaponry against Brook and Khan, who has been down numerous times in his career.
Should Khan win, it would place him back in the spotlight of elite, considering the fact that Khan hasn’t won a title since early 2012 when the WBA awarded him the junior welterweight after Lamont Peterson tested positive for a banned substance.