FightPost Boxer of the Week: Terence Crawford

FightPost Boxer of the Week: Terence Crawford

By Gary Kittilsen

For the second straight week, one of the two best pound for pound fighters in the world jumped in the ring and showed the world way they are pound for pound elites. Both fighters scored stoppage victories, defended their titles and captured our Fighter of the Week award. Last week was Vasyl Lomachenko, this week it’sTerence “Bud” Crawford’s turn.

The Nebraska native ran his record to 35-0 (26) by absolutely taking apart former two-division world champ Amir Khan in six one-sided rounds making the second consecutive successful defense of his WBO welterweight title.

Despite the unusual ending, Crawford was in control of the fight from the opening bell on, dropping Khan with a right hand and left hook in the first round. Khan got up quickly but was unstable and Crawford, typically a slow starter, pounced on his hurt opponent battering him up against the ropes and setting the pace for the rest of the fight.

Khan tried to slow the fight down in the second round but a patient and precise Crawford wobbled Khan again with a right hand that landed flush on Khan’s chin. Crawford switched to his southpaw stance in the third and really settled into his comfort zone and began badly outboxing and outskilling his opponent.

Peppering him with his right jab. Khan, clearly on the defensive struggled to get any real offensive attack going, besides a few right hands in the fifth round which was perhaps his best offense of the fight. However, the challenger also ate some shots from Crawford in the exchanges.

Early In the sixth, Crawford landed a very low left hand that seemed to badly hurt Khan. During the allotted recovery time, Khan appeared in excruciating pain and trainer Virgil Hunter said Khan was unable to continue giving Crawford the sixth-round TKO victory.

Despite being one of the two best fighters in the world Crawford finds himself in somewhat of a rough spot. Getting a unification bout or a huge money fight will be difficult to make. Crawford is currently represented by Top Rank all of the other welterweight champions are with Al Haymon and PBC. There would have to be a cross-promotional deal and a fight with IBF champ Errol Spence would be the best fight that could be made.

Crawford and his team called out Spence and seem to want the fight. However, Spence has expressed interest in fighting the other champion on “his side of the street” as he put it. If Haymon doesn’t make any of his top welterweights available for a fight with Crawford, we could be looking at more one-sided mismatches like this in the future for Crawford.