IBHOF inductee and boxing gambling expert Graham Houston looks for the betting value in this weekend’s big fight between WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford and former IBF title-holder Kell Brook.
Terence Crawford, who just might be the best fighter in the world, defends his welterweight title against ex-champion Kell Brook in Las Vegas tonight (early hours of Sunday morning in the UK) and he is a prohibitive favourite. Still, I think Brook will put up a good fight.
The lopsided odds on Crawford are a bit surprising. Is too much being made of Brook’s two defeats? Brook made a brave attempt to win the middleweight title against Gennadiy Golovkin, losing in the fifth round to the naturally bigger man. Then he lost his 147-pound title on an 11th-round TKO against Errol Spence Jr. It’s no disgrace losing to Golovkin and Spence.
In each of these fights, Brook suffered a broken orbital bone. He has come back with three wins in fights where he was a huge favourite. Now he is the underdog seeking to make a last grab at glory.
Brook says he is in his best condition ever at 34. That’s the sort of thing you’d expect him to say, but Brook looked in tremendous shape at Friday’s weigh-in, when he came in bang on the welterweight limit of 147 pounds. (So much for concerns that Brook might be depleted by making weight in his first fight at 147 pounds since losing to Spence three years ago.) The ESPN weigh-in coverage described Brook as looking “phenomenal” on the scales.
Photo: Mikey Williams/Top Rank Inc via Getty Images).
It is a concern with Brook that both eye sockets have been damaged but there was no problem in this regard in his three fights since losing to Spence.
Both of Brook’s losses in his 39-2 (27 KOs) record came against elite-level fighters. Now he meets another in Crawford. This fight is as tough as it gets for the British challenger. Crawford, 33, is a smooth technician with a mean streak. He isn’t what you’d call a big puncher but he is sharp and accurate. Crawford wears opponents down with punch-accumulation. He is adept at switching between the orthodox and southpaw stances. In fact, I consider him to be a tad more effective when in the southpaw posture.
Although Crawford has stopped 27 opponents in his 36 wins he usually takes his time and gets the job done in a methodical manner. He discourages the other man by making him miss and then countering crisply. But Crawford can be caught and he can be hurt. Yuriorkis Gamboa buzzed him when Crawford was boxing as a lightweight. Egidijus Kavaliauskas buckled Crawford’s legs with a right hand in the third round last December. However, in each of these bouts Crawford regrouped and came back strongly.
The impressively muscled Brook is huge for a welterweight, but Crawford is what you could call deceptively strong. It isn’t easy to bully a fighter such as Kavaliauskas, for instance, but Crawford was able to back up the Lithuanian “Mean Machine” from about the fourth round before stopping him in the ninth.
I think we can expect Brook to do well in the early rounds. He surely hits hard enough to get Crawford’s respect. But as the fight goes deeper it’s likely that Crawford will start to assert himself with his well-placed punches. He looks a bit quicker to the punch than Brook, slicker defensively, and he is the fresher fighter. Crawford hasn’t taken the sort of punishment that Brook absorbed in the fights with Golovkin and Spence.
So, Crawford is the obvious favourite. But Brook seems genuinely confident. He’s boxing away from home, but he won the title in the US by outpointing Shawn Porter in what was considered an upset. Boxing in the MGM Grand “bubble” in Las Vegas in front of an intimate gathering (I believe 100 spectators will be allowed) isn’t likely to worry him.
So, how do we bet the fight? For starters, no one is going to be laying the price on Crawford (1/14 or -1400). That admittance price is way too high. Is there value in Brook at Betfred odds of 7/1 (+700)? There are worse bets than taking a flier on Brook. He is a veteran former champion who knows how to fight, and he’s a good puncher. He will be the bigger man in the fight. If Kavaliauskas could hurt Crawford, so can Brook. But, then, Crawford is a special type of fighter. Hurting him is one thing. It’s another thing to keep him hurt.
So Crawford probably will get it done. But how? The decision proposition is priced at 5/2 (+250). If you like Crawford by KO TKO DQ you have to lay five to win two. That’s not very enticing. Fancy a stab at the “total rounds” proposition? The most widely offered market is over/under 9.5 rounds, with the “under” slightly favoured at around 4/6 (-150). Some shops offer 8.5 rounds, with the “over” listed at around 8/11 (-138).
The round-group bets are interesting. Some outlets offer Crawford to win in rounds 7-12 at 11/10 (+110). That looks a good bet if you feel that Brook will get worn down and stopped late (in other words, a fight that plays out similarly to Brook’s loss to Spence). Other shops have Crawford to win in rounds 9-12 at around 9/4 (+225).
I think Crawford to win in rounds 9-12 is a play that makes a lot of sense. Brook looks ready to put forth a huge effort. He has always shown a good chin. He moved up two weight divisions and stood up to Gennadiy Golovkin’s firepower for four full rounds and one minute, 57 seconds into the fifth, and was never off his feet. He lasted into the second half of the 11th round against the formidable Errol Spence Jr.
Let’s look at Crawford’s last four fights. It took him nine rounds to stop an outclassed Jeff Horn. Jose Benavidez Jr lasted into the 12th round. Amir Khan was still hanging in there in the sixth round and looked like being around for at least another couple of rounds when the low-blow incident terminated the fight. Kavaliauskas, capable and heavy-handed but not quite on Brook’s level, had his moments early in the fight and managed to get as far as the ninth round.
Bearing all this in mind, Crawford to win in rounds 9-12 at +225 looks promising to me.
Main image and all photos: Mikey Williams/Top Rank Inc via Getty Images.