Terence Crawford has seen it all, heard it all and done it all in the fight game but the pinnacle of the entire sport awaits him soon.
The Mount Rushmore of boxing. The Mount Everest of the sweet science. A super fight with boxing’s biggest pay per view draw against Mexico’s Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez in September.
No one gives Crawford a chance but if he pulls it off, he’ll go down as one of the greatest fighters that ever lived. End of.
What a journey it has been for one of boxing’s Kingpins though in athlete supremo ‘Bud’ Crawford.
‘Bud’ in an exchange with the ‘Ringside seat with Tassie’ show, looking back on some big fights in the journey so far with the UK’s Amir Khan, Kell Brook and America’s Errol Spence said:
“There were a few others—Amir Khan, Kell Brook, two of England’s greatest fighters. Amir Khan fought them all, so did Kell Brook. Did you fight Amir first, then Kell? Yeah. Did you expect the Amir Khan fight to happen so easily for you? I didn’t know what to expect. I knew Amir was fast, I knew he’d jump in and jump out, but I also knew his punch resistance wasn’t great. You’d seen him get dropped plenty of times, but you’d also seen him get up, so you can’t ever question Amir’s heart. In my mind, I was always saying I just had to catch him—touch him, touch him, catch him, and I’d be in good company. I dropped him in the first round. Then the Kell Brook fight was during COVID, right? He always starts well—he started well against Golovkin, and with you, he seemed okay early. What round did you catch him? The fourth round. He was tricky—he was good, had good distance, great range, and was making me come up short a lot. I had to figure him out, adjust to his style, and pick up the pace a little bit. Was there any time you were getting frustrated, having to wait, especially since Spence had pretty much all three belts by then, and that fight just wasn’t happening? Yeah, I was in a situation where I was frustrated a lot, given that I was calling for the fight, and everybody was saying I was ducking him, that I should’ve signed with PBC, or that I was only trying to fight him because he had a car accident. I had to hear so many negative comments about why I wanted to fight him—“He’s the big fish, he’s the A-side, he’s this, he’s that.” I had to hear all that for five years, really. It was a bit frustrating because people on the outside looking in didn’t have an idea what was really going on—they were just making up stuff, and the media and other people who believed them were just going with it. Once we got the fight over with, it was like a sigh of relief.”
People new to the sport don’t realize some of the big names Crawford has not only fought from the UK, America and elsewhere but he absolutely battered these people like Spence, Khan and Brook.
Absolutely battered them he did, he didn’t just beat them.
Those are not orginary regular fighters either those guys, you’re talking about world champions at the pinnacle of the entire sport.
Brook on the night was very sharp as well – Brook later sparked Khan – Brook will tell you how good a fighter Crawford really is.
Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford fights to the level of interest he has in a fight, only the big fights get him out of bed.
This super fight against Canelo Alvarez will too in September – speed kills though – he knows it – putting on too weight is okay but he can’t compromise speed or precision of work or accuracy.
Alvarez is going to look to flatten Crawford in round one.