It isn’t the most exciting of the fights Crawford was linked to, but the arguable pound-for-pound king has a date set

Terence Crawford is ready to return to the ring. After saying that he wouldn’t fight without a live gate unless he was compensated correctly at the onset of the global pandemic, Crawford will fight again on Nov. 14 against veteran contender Kell Brook on ESPN.

Crawford was linked to some potentially exciting fights with Manny Pacquiao and Shawn Porter, which would seem to indicate some bridges finally crossed between Top Rank, who promotes Crawford, and PBC, who controls Pacquiao, Porter and the majority of the other top welterweights in boxing. Instead, the WBO welterweight champion will meet Brook, who has won three straight against lesser competition after being knocked out by Errol Spence and Gennadiy Golovkin in consecutive bouts.

Crawford (36-0, 27 KO) is one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world, but has run into issues in recent years with the top fighters being aligned with PBC and cutting into the most attractive possible matches. That left Crawford to display his talents against outgunned opponents Egidijus Kavaliauskas and Amir Khan in 2019 while rival and PBC fighter Spence Jr. had career-defining battles with Mikey Garcia and Porter.

A showdown with PBC-promoted Spence, who holds the WBC and IBF titles, is the long-discussed but seemingly unlikely biggest fight in the welterweight division. Potential bouts with PBC’s Pacquiao and Porter were supposed to serve as gateway bouts to making the Spence fight a reality, though Top Rank’s Bob Arum seemed more committed to the idea of Crawford vs. Brook, which was announced as a Crawford’s next fight during the ESPN broadcast of Vasiliy Lomachenko vs. Teofimo Lopez.

Brook (39-2, 27 KO) is the former IBF welterweight champ. Returning to welterweight to defend his title, Brook was stopped in Round 11 by Spence. Three fights against middling competition between 2018 and 2020 lined Brook up to get another title shot, this time gunning for Crawford’s welterweight belt.

— CBS SPORTS