By David Martinez / dmboxing.com

Terence Crawford (37-0 / 28 by KO) scored a brilliant fourth round stoppage over former champion Kell Brook (39-3 / 27 by KO) to retain his WBO welterweight title, at the MGM Grand “The Bubble” in Las Vegas.

After coming out in the first round in a orthodox stance, which was surprising to me, and losing two of the first three rounds on my scorecard, the beginning of the end came in round four.

In his traditional southpaw stance, he unleashed tremendous arsenal of punches that put Brook reeling threw the ring ropes, that constituted a standing eight count.

Crawford continued the assault with a combination of speed, power and accurate power punches, with a right hook that was the clincher. Referee Tony Weeks wisely halted the bout, with the time officially at the 1:14 mark in round four.

The future focus now awaits a mega fight in 2021 with either Manny Pacquiao or Errol Spence Jr.

I have personally placed Crawford at #1 on my “pound for pound” ranking for the past few years, and that was even prior to the Lomachenko loss to Teofimo Lopez.

For the record, my top dozen “pound for pound” boxers currently are:

1) Terence Crawford (37-0 / 28 by KO)

2) Naoya Inque (19-0 / 16 by KO)

3) Canelo Alvarez (53-1-2 / 36 by KO)

4) Errol Spence Jr. (26-0 / 21 by KO)

5) Teofimo Lopez (16-0 / 12 by KO)

6) Juan Francisco Estrada (40-3 / 27 by KO)

7) Vasiliy Lomachenko ( 14-2 / 10 by KO)

8) Oleksandr Usyk (17-0 / 13 by KO)

9) Gennady Golovin (40-1-1 / 35 by KO)

10) Tyson Fury (30-0-1 / 21 by KO)

11) Gervonta Davis (24-0 / 23 by KO)

12) Manny Pacquiao (62-7-2 / 39 by KO)