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Philippines, 26 Nov 2020 |
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Crawford vs Spence Super Fight First Half of 2021 or Fuhgeddaboudit By Ralph Rimpell PhilBoxing.com Wed, 18 Nov 2020  Last Saturday the boxing world saw Terrance “Bud” Crawford successfully defend his WBO welterweight crown against former IBF champ Kell Brook of England by a 4th round TKO. The fight appeared competitive for the first few rounds as Brook showed why he was a former world champion and won at least 2 rounds and looked impressive, but Bud figured him out and impressively turned up the heat and sent Brook packing in the 4th round. This is nothing new for Crawford. The outcome of all of his professional fights have always been the same. Either a stoppage or a decision win. His record stands at 37-0, 28KOs. This writer has Crawford currently as “Pound for Pound” (P4P) the best fighter in boxing. He is sure to be a definite inductee for the Boxing Hall of fame when he retires. Crawford is a former lightweight champion (135lbs) and truly an undisputed champion at junior welterweight as he held all four sanctioning bodies’ titles (WBA, WBC, WBO, IBF) at 140lbs. 
Crawford dismantles Brook. People will dismiss his victory over Brook, but it’s really absurd to do so. Brook fought as a welterweight (147lbs) but could also fight at middleweight (160lbs) or vice versa. Brook also fought at 154lbs. Remember Brook jumped at the title opportunity and fight purse to fight Gennady Golovkin back in 2016. Remember how ripped and muscular he was at 160lbs? He made statements that he didn’t have to worry about making weight when he was training for Golovkin. He performed well against Golovkin. Some even had Brook winning on their scorecard, until the fight ended due to an injury. Brook then came down in weight to fight Spence at 147lbs to defend is IBF crown and it was the same scenario of the Golovkin fight of Brook being hurt during the fight against Spence and the fight ended in the 11th round. Brook recovered from those injuries, won 3 straight fights, and earned a title shot against Crawford. Brook is still an elite fighter after his loss to Crawford. He can surprise others, but not this writer, and win another world title anywhere between 154lbs-168lbs. Brook lost to Crawford because Crawford was simply A LOT BETTER than Brook. Boxing critics will say that Crawford hasn’t fought the best opponents and that may be so, but that isn’t Crawford’s fault. After defeating Brook, Crawford recently said that a fight with Pacquiao was imminent but the Covid19 pandemic prevented the fight from happening. During that interview Arum talked about how Bud would do to Errol Spence (WBC/IBF) fellow champion (26-0, 21KOs) the same as he did to Brook, TKO him. A fight with Spence is what Crawford has been chasing since 2018. It seems that Crawford is resigned to the fact that because he and Spence fight for different promotional companies (Crawford with Top Rank and Spence with Premier Boxing Champions - PBC) the fight will not be made due to politics. That seems odd because Crawford and Pacquiao, who also fights for PBC, were reportedly in deep negotiations for a fight. The problem may not necessarily be with the Promoters, but with both or one of the fighters. Spence also beat Brook which is when he became champion back in 2017. When has Spence called out or publicly challenged Crawford to a fight? He may have, but if he did it was not loud enough or perhaps no significant effort was made such as a memorandum to Top Rank that he is ready to negotiate a fight with Terrance Crawford. Since winning his IBF title, he has gone 4-0. Spence impressively beat 4 division champion Mikey Garcia and unified his title by winning Shawn Porter’s WBC title. 
Spence drops Brook. Spence is scheduled to defend against former 2 division champion Danny Garcia next month. He may be looking past Danny Garcia, which will be a tough fight, because he has called out boxing’s cash cow, Canelo Alvarez. Spence calling out Canelo is a great financial and career move. Spence will make a minimum guarantee of triple the amount of millions to fight Canelo as opposed to fighting Crawford. If Covid 19 restrictions were lifted because of the recently announced new vaccine, a fight of that magnitude could be held in Las Vegas with fight fans in attendance and it would be business as usual. Canelo is a free agent and he can do business with PBC directly as he and promotional firm Golden Boy have parted ways. Back to reality, Canelo is focused on his next fight against Callum smith. It seems Crawford has given up on fighting Spence based on comments to the media that he doubts that a fight will ever happen so pursued a Pacquiao fight instead which is more lucrative then a Spence fight. Spence wants to fight Canelo. This writer doesn’t believe Pacquiao will fight Crawford and Canelo will fight Spence in the near future. This writer envisions Pacquiao fighting Connor McGregor first before he fights Crawford because of the Pay Per view money Pacquiao can make. If Spence should defeat Danny Garcia, the best and dangerous fight to prove he’s the best in boxing is to defeat Crawford. This Advice to Spence and Crawford is Free Errol, you want a fight with Canelo Alvarez? Beat Danny Garcia. Then beat Terrance Crawford in 2021. After the two victories, announce to the boxing world that you cleaned up the welterweights and you’re looking for bigger challenges, like Canelo in 2022. A Spence resume that includes a title unification victory over P4P best Crawford will likely get you a blockbuster fight against Canelo! Terrance you want a fight against Pacquiao? Take a page out of Tommy Hearns book and Ray Leonard’s book for Leonard-Hearns I back in 1982. Hearns apparently wanted to fight Leonard more than Leonard wanted to fight Hearns. Hearns reasonably gave Leonard what he wanted in negotiations so the fight got signed. When Leonard unretired and was finally ready to fight Hagler, Leonard reasonably gave Hagler what he wanted in negotiations so the fight could be made back in 1989. Understand? Have your people reach out to the Spence camp and ask what they reasonably want to get the fight signed! So, if a Crawford-Spence “Super Fight” doesn’t happen within six months of 2021, there will likely never be a “Super fight”. There could be a regular fight between the two likely because if and when they do fight they will not be in their prime and have had incurred a loss or two. For that reason if this fight does not happen in 2021 Fuhgeddaboudit. ***Ralph Rimpell is a writer based out of New York and is a Boxing Correspondent for Philboxing.com. Ralph holds an undergraduate degree from City University of New York. He has been a Boxing Writer for over ten years having written for several top boxing websites on the World Wide Web. Before becoming a writer, Ralph's passion was for professional wrestling until he realized professional wrestling was entertainment and not a real sport. It was at that time the 1984 US Olympic team made up of future stars such as Evander Holyfield, Meldrick Taylor, Pernell Whitaker, etc. entered the professional ranks and signed with promotional outfit Main Events.It was also at that time a young exciting Heavyweight originally hailing from Brooklyn named Mike Tyson also turned professional and became the face of boxing. Young boxing fan Ralph just couldn't get enough of boxing as a large part of it was being broadcast on "free TV". As time went on, Ralph felt boxing writers were not being forthcoming with their boxing coverage, opinion pieces, interviews, etc. So Ralph decided to write an article and submitted it to a Boxing website thinking it would be deleted and ignored by the Editor. To Ralph's surprise his article was posted on their website and the readers embraced it. The rest is history. "I thank God for the Internet because it has created opportunities for writers like myself who likely would not have been given an opportunity to write for print publications. I hope someday soon to expand my role in Boxing on different levels." -- Ralph Rimpell Writer Contact: RLuvsboxing@aol.com Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ralph Rimpell.  |
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