Will Crawford beat Canelo and Usyk? American near absolute greatness
Igor Nekrasov July 29, 2023, 2:00 PM Moscow time Audio version: Your browser does not support the audio element.
Terence is forced to defeat Errol Spence.
On the night of July 30, a large-scale professional boxing tournament will take place in Las Vegas. In the main event of the night, two undefeated Americans, Errol Spence and Terence Crawford, will square off for the undisputed world welterweight title. For Crawford, this fight could be historic: if he wins, Terence will be the first fighter in the four-belt era to become the undisputed world champion in two weight classes.
Like Spence, Crawford started out with an amateur career, but unlike his opponent, he didn’t achieve incredible success. Terence won the US Championship and Golden Gloves, was selected for the 2008 Olympics. After failing to qualify, Crawford decided to turn professional.
In some ways, Spence and Crawford’s professional careers are similar, especially at the beginning of the journey. Terence got off to a strong start, in the first two years he had ten fights and won them all. Six years and 22 wins after his debut, Crawford captured the first world title of his career. In Scotland, Terence defeated local lightweight champion Ricky Burns by unanimous decision to win his WBO title, after Burns had made five successful defenses before that.
Until the end of 2014, Crawford defended his twice won title and decided it was time to move up to the next category. Immediately after receiving a WBO super featherweight world title fight, Terence destroyed Thomas Dulorme of Cuba in six rounds and won the vacant belt, becoming the super lightweight world champion.
After that, Crawford began looking for other weight belts, not forgetting to keep the mandatory defenses. In July 2016, Terence turned out to be stronger than the undefeated Ukrainian Viktor Postol and took his WBC belt. After two defenses, the American got a fight with the prefix “super” for the absolute world champion title in light welterweight against the owner of the IBF and WBA belts, Julius Indongo. Already in the third round of this fight, Terence checked the body of the Namibian in such a way that Indongo bent in half and could not stand not only under the referee, but for a long time after it. Crawford scored a fantastic victory and became the new undisputed light-welterweight world champion.
Interestingly, Crawford did not defend the belts and again moved up, this time to welterweight. And again, the American immediately earned a title shot against legendary Manny Pacquiao’s attacker, Australian Jeff Horn. Crawford finished his opponent in the ninth round, inflicting his first defeat and becoming the new WBO welterweight world champion. Over the next five years, Terence had six successful defenses and had a chance to make history.
The fight against Spence is an incredible opportunity for Crawford to become the first undisputed two-weight world champion. Neither Saul Alvarez, Alexander Usik, nor anyone else has conquered this peak, so Terence is on the verge of a unique event.
The tragic fate of Crawford’s rival:
“I started to see life differently.” Spence miraculously survived a drunken accident and became a superstar
At the moment, Crawford has a perfect record: 39 wins in 39 fights, 30 of which were won ahead of schedule. Interestingly, in the welterweight division no one has yet managed to reach a court decision with Terence, he killed all his rivals.
Crawford isn’t thinking about breaking Floyd Mayweather’s record (50-0), saying he definitely won’t have that many more fights. But in another component, Terence gets to write his name into history once and for all.
