For Crawford to grow as a fighter and develop into a marquee attraction, he needs to fight the best of the best in his division?
On Saturday, February 27, at New York?s Madison Square Garden, in a fight televised live on HBO Championship Boxing, WBO World super lightweight champion Terence ?Bud? Crawford (27-0, 19 KOs), the Pride of Omaha, Nebraska, defends his title against Hank Lundy (26-5-1, 13 KOs), the perennial contender from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Crawford is a terrific fighter who needs to fight terrific fighters. It?s a pity he didn?t get a shot at the soon-to-be-retired Manny Pacquiao, presumably because HBO and friends thought a third fight with Timothy Bradley would be easier to sell. Good luck with that. The proxy war between their respective trainers, Freddie Roach and Teddy Atlas, an extra added bonus as it were, is already feeling stale.
But there are other fighters in the super lightweight division, some titleholders and some not, who would make a fight with Crawford interesting, and maybe even competitive. Adrien Broner, Viktor Postol, Ruslan Provodnikov, Mauricio Herrera, and Lucas Matthysse may have been unavailable or are being promoted by someone other than Bob Arum and Top Rank. But these are the kind of quality opponents Crawford needs to face if he wants to save face and be considered a pound-for-pound fighter.
That is not to knock Hank Lundy. He?s a good fighter. He has fast hands, reasonable power, and a sturdy chin. But he is not ranked in the top 15. Nor is he natural super lightweight, which was true of Crawford?s last opponent, Dierry Jean, as well. That worrying trend aside, Lundy has also gone 4-4 in his last eight fights, having lost to Ray Beltran in 2012, Viktor Postol in 2013, Thomas Dulorme in 2014, and Mauricio Herrera in 2015. But at least he won his last fight, a fifth round TKO over Carlos Winston Velasquez, who was 23-21-1 going in.
No promoter wants to jeopardize his investment. A perfect record means much in these imperfect times. But if Crawford is going to grow as a fighter and develop into a marquee attraction, he needs to fight the best of the best in his division, and the sooner the better.
