Bring It On - The Ring

By Ron Borges |

HE MAY BE ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN, BUT TERENCE CRAWFORD STANDS READY TO BEAT DOWN ANYONE WHO WOULD CHALLENGE HIS CLAIM TO THE WELTERWEIGHT THRONE

America’s best prizefighter finds himself in an odd circumstance at the moment. Despite an undefeated record, world titles in three weight divisions and a vast storehouse of skills, Terence Crawford has to “make do.” This, as with all things in boxing, is for reasons both simple and complicated.

On the surface, the sport of boxing is a straightforward act. Your task is to rid yourself as quickly as possible of the presence of someone trying to assault you. Yet the business of prizefighting, which is a sport unto itself, weaves a far more tangled web than that.

No one questions Crawford’s boxing ability. On any list you can find, be it of the world’s best welterweights or the mythical but not unimportant pound-for-pound rankings, Crawford’s name is either at the top or within one rung of its apex. Every step on that ladder has been traversed the hard way. It is the only road Crawford knows. Some favor Errol Spence over Crawford among welterweight titleholders. Others, including The Ring, give the edge to Vasiliy Lomachenko over Crawford among the pound-for-pound best. But regardless of that, whatever class he’s in, it doesn’t take long to call the roll.

WELTERWEIGHT FIGHT NO. 1: TKO 9 JEFF HORN, JUNE 9, 2018 – FOR WBO TITLE

So why is it so difficult for the 31-year-old WBO titleholder to get the opportunity he craves, which is to settle the matter of who is actually the most proficient welterweight in the world? Truth be told, settling such things has become increasingly more difficult in recent years for all the same reasons great fighters have been avoided dating back to the golden age of the sport.

You can blame the problems on anything you’d like. You can say Crawford has been unable to get into the ring with Spence, Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter or Danny Garcia because of contractual obligations, promotional considerations, network prohibitions or boxing politics. Call it what you will. The essential truth is two words: money and fear. These have always been interconnected in prizefighting, because it is concerns over losing the former that leads to the latter.

Everyone in boxing is in on the money disputes, but it is really fear that complicates things. Fear of defeat. Fear of the loss of the almighty “zero” on a boxer’s record. And fear of what that loss might lead to, which is loss of leverage in the marketplace.

Seldom, if ever, is it the fighter who carries this fear with him. This is especially true of great fighters. Although we don’t truly know very often who is and who is not great until they face an equally great (or nearly so) challenger, fighters by their nature seek out such challenges. They do not shrink from them.

Crawford captured the vacant Ring lightweight championship with a 12-round decision over Raymundo Beltran in November 2014. Two judges gave Beltran a single round, but that’s it.

Terence Crawford has proven he is cut from that cloth. He is battle-tested, a Ring champion at lightweight and an undisputed junior welterweight champion before attaining his current status at 147 pounds. He will fight you in his house or yours. He will accept any challenge, because he has no doubt about what his capabilities are. He respects many opponents but fears none. Thoughts of losing do not enter his mind – and why would they?

But when it comes to promoters like Bob Arum, who handles Crawford, and Al Haymon, who promotes and manages nearly all the other significant names in the welterweight division, fear is their constant companion.

They do not fear so much for their fighters because, after all, it is the boxer who bleeds for his money, not the promoter. They fear losing what a fighter’s unblemished record brings to their end of the business – which is to say not only money but also the lifeblood flow of TV dates that serve as a platform to promote lesser-known boxers.

Crawford has lived with this for most of his career and has grown accustomed to hearing this guy isn’t available and that guy has other options and the other guy doesn’t want to fight you at the moment but don’t take it personally. Faced with such realities, Crawford has had to make do.

Yet whether he will ever get a chance to prove that all he believes about himself is true, Crawford has chosen to follow the wise path. Simply put, that has been to beat the tar out of everyone willing to face him until either Spence or Thurman – or perhaps the unaffiliated Mikey Garcia, who is stepping up from lightweight to challenge Spence himself on March 16 in Dallas – decides he is out of other options.

This is also why Crawford readily agreed to fight Amir Khan on April 20 at Madison Square Garden. No disrespect to Khan. The 32-year-old British standout is a former unified junior welterweight titleholder and a dangerous boxer-puncher with a goodly amount of skill himself, but he is not Spence or Thurman. He’s just the next-best challenger available, so Crawford took one look and hollered, “Come on down!”

Though he’s not among the elite at 147 pounds, former junior welterweight titleholder Amir Khan probably has more name recognition than anyone Crawford has faced so far.

Crawford understands the only chance he has to lure the other titleholders into a showdown is to focus not on what they have been unwilling to do but rather on what Khan is willing to do, which is challenge him.

“I’m driven by competition,” Crawford said. “I can’t worry about things I can’t control. I don’t worry about nobody in the division. I feel I’m the number one guy. Spence feels he’s the number one guy. Thurman feels he’s the number one guy. I just think if everybody in the division wants to fight each other and they’re serious about it, it will happen. If not, it won’t. But if you look at my history, I never turned down any fight. I’ve always shown the ability to fight anyone in front of me. I hope everybody seen I’m not scared to fight anybody.”

READ: AMIR KHAN SEEKS ‘LEGEND’ STATUS BY BEATING TERENCE CRAWFORD

That has been true since Crawford was a young kid prowling around some hard streets in Omaha, Nebraska. When he first tried boxing at the age of 7, he immediately fell in love, but the raw violence that attracted him to the ring wasn’t all there is to a sport he had not yet mastered.

That led to his being thrown out of the gym for a while for what he admits now was a hard-headed approach to the science of boxing. When he returned, he was ready not only to fight but to box.

“My first time in the ring, I went straight at the guy and it was a fight!” Crawford recalled, chuckling at the memory of the kid he once was. “There wasn’t no boxing involved. It was a fight.

“I didn’t want to shadowbox or do sit-ups or push-ups. I just wanted to hit the speed bag and spar. I didn’t want to do what the coaches wanted. I got kicked out because I didn’t listen.

Former featherweight titleholder Yuriorkis Gamboa was coasting on an undefeated record and considerable hype before he ran into Crawford as a lightweight and was stopped in the ninth round.

“I came back in 2002 more focused. I was ready to learn. Movement. The jab. Slipping and rolling. When I started learning to box, I became a better fighter. We had a guy named Bernard Davis in our gym. He was one of the best amateurs in our gym. I couldn’t hit him. I couldn’t get to him. He was faster than me. I wanted to do like he did.”

Crawford has done much more than that, winning the WBO lightweight belt in Scotland, the home of then-titleholder Ricky Burns, in 2014. Almost immediately he showed his willingness to take on all comers when he squared off with undefeated Cuban star Yuriorkis Gamboa (23-0 at the time), a complicated fighter no one wanted to face.

Crawford took him apart and less than a year later moved up to win the WBO junior welterweight title. Six fights later he unified the four major 140-pound titles, overwhelming IBF/WBA titleholder Julius Indongo before knocking him out with a thunderous left hook to the body in the third round.

Ten months later, he dominated Jeff Horn to capture the WBO welterweight title, winning every round on the judges’ scorecards before mercifully stopping Horn in the ninth round. Thus began his quest for a real challenge, something he believes is essential for his continued growth as a fighter.

WELTERWEIGHT FIGHT NO. 2: TKO 12 JOSE BENAVIDEZ, OCT. 13, 2018 – FIRST DEFENSE OF WBO TITLE

“I never dreamed of being pound-for-pound,” Crawford admitted. “My only dream was to be world champion. I fulfilled that in 2014, so I had to make other goals and objectives. To become undisputed became my new dream. What do you want to become that the fighters you looked up to never became?

“I became that fighter who pushed to be great. Once I became undisputed (at 140 pounds), I wanted to go up a division and straight into a title match. Now my ultimate dream is to become undisputed again. How? Keep winning.

“I don’t worry too much about the naysayers. I just worry about the fights in front of me. Of course anybody would be upset that the (big) fights aren’t happening, but if I keep winning, the people will make the fights.”

Crawford became the undisputed champion at junior welterweight with a third-round knockout of Julius Indongo in 2017.

A hometown hero in Omaha, where he has become Nebraska’s professional sports franchise, Crawford will journey to New York to face Khan in a fight set for ESPN pay-per-view. It will likely be the biggest payday of his career and will come barely a month after Spence faces Garcia. If Garcia prevails, one could easily see him and Crawford squaring off to unify half the titles. The former amateur foes have proven their willingness to accept risks with their respective ascents to the 147-pound division from the lighter weight classes.

If Spence prevails, however, his exclusive promotional deal with Haymon and his television alliances with Showtime and Fox would be at war with Crawford’s contracts with Arum and ESPN. Bridging those business divides may prove more daunting than getting the fighters themselves to warm to the idea of facing each other. Whether it happens or not, however, Terence Crawford will soldier on, secure in what he’s accomplished so far.

Crawford doesn’t need help in proving he’s at the top of the world, but rankings are affected by more than merit. Here’s the timeline for his climb through The Ring’s pound-for-pound list:

May 2015: Manny Pacquiao’s loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. triggers a reshuffling of the ratings. Tim Bradley is dropped from his No. 9 spot, which leaves room at No. 10 for Crawford’s debut.

May 2015: After a year of inactivity, Juan Manuel Marquez (No. 9 at the time) is removed. With his departure, Crawford rises to No. 9.

June 2015: Another retirement, this time Carl Froch (No. 7 at the time) leaves room for Crawford to climb to No. 8.

September 2015: After being removed for inactivity earlier in the year, Andre Ward is reinstalled at No. 2 and his return triggers another reshuffling of the list. The Ring’s rating panel reevaluates Crawford’s position and elevates him to No. 7.

November 2015: Wladimir Klitschko (No. 6 at the time) loses to Tyson Fury and drops off the list. Crawford gains another rank, settling in at No. 6.

July 2016: Crawford wins the Ring championship at junior welterweight with a unanimous decision over Victor Postol and is raised to No. 5.

June 2017: Sergey Kovalev loses his rematch against Ward and falls from No. 2 to No. 7. Crawford rises to No. 4 as a result.

August 2017: Crawford becomes the undisputed champion at 140 pounds with his third-round knockout of Julius Indongo. He jumps over Roman Gonzalez into the No. 3 spot.

September 2017: No. 1-rated Ward retires, lifting Gennady Golovkin into the top spot and taking Crawford to No. 2, where he sits now. He is pushed back to No. 3 after Vasiliy Lomachenko takes No. 2 with his stoppage of Jorge Linares in May 2018, but regains his spot after Golovkin loses to Canelo Alvarez in September 2018 and slips to No. 4.

“I’m a three-time world champion,” Crawford said calmly but forcefully. “I was (Boxing Writers Association of America) Fighter of the Year. I won an ESPY. I was undisputed champion. There ain’t never been a fighter I couldn’t figure out. If I retired today, I’m fine. Those (other) guys have accomplished half of what I have.

“I rate myself number one. I don’t care who else rates me where. That’s just opinions. Yes, Lomachenko has fought everybody they put in front of him. I can’t take nothing away from him. But the guys he fought had losses (already on their records). There’s not a comparison to who I fought.

“Errol made it clear Terence is on the wrong side of the street. Terence has made it clear he’s willing to fight, but Errol has a lot of opponents on the PBC side. It’s not him, it’s the business side.

“Errol never backed down from a challenge before, but he’s comfortable. He’s fighting at Jerry World (Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones’ AT&T Stadium). So I chose to face the best welterweight in the world willing to fight me, Amir Khan.

“All the other top welterweights have fight dates, so you go to the next best opponent. I’ll work to add his name on my resume. My hope is as time goes by, Spence will feel the need to make the fight with me. If he don’t, I’ll keep moving on. If he do, I’ll be there waiting for him.”