“That, which does not kill us, makes us stronger.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher
LAS VEGAS ? He was sitting in his car under a street light in North Omaha, a 21-year old undefeated boxer who was about to learn he had just come from the wrong place at the wrong time,
It was a street corner dice game on an autumn night and he had ducked out to count his winnings. He never saw the guy who had come from behind car. When Terence Crawford heard the bullet, it was too late. It struck him in the head.
“Things like that can happen in our neighborhood,” Brian McIntyre, his trainer, said. ”Like a lot of poor black neighborhoods, we’ve got street gangs, we’ve got drugs. Terrence wasn’t into any of that. He was just where he shouldn’t have been. But I believe it was one of two big turning points in his life.”
“Well, it was, ” Crawford said in his dressing room at the top Rank Gym. He is the WBO junior welterweight champion and he puts that title on the line against Viktor Postal, the WBC champ, at The MGM Grand Garden on Saturday night.
The bullet did not enter his head. It grazed his skull. He doesn’t like to talk it, probably because he has had to tell the story so many times, but Tuesday he said:
“The impact on my life was enormous. It could have turned out so differently and I realized that. So you carry yourself differently. You work harder. You get down to serious business because the better you get and the higher you climb, you know that every fight is a risk. Every fighter who steps into the ring knows anything can happen.
“Who thought Joe Frazier could knock Ali down? Who thought Ali could knock George Foreman out? Nothing is simple in this business.”
Crawford wasn’t always this reflective.
“He has really matured,” McIntyre said, although he conceded that a gunshot is a hell of a wake-up call. ”I think he went from kid to a man. He used to goof off sometimes, not run the miles, not do the work but now he has become the best in the world at his weight.”
It is McIntyre’s thought that a little adversity came at the right time.
“Now he had a title and we had a very tough fight against a guy he knew very well, Yuriorkus Gamboa,” he said. “This guy had heart. We had worked in the gym on a right hand over the top when Terrence shifts into a southpaw stance. But we were barely missing him during the fight. It was a very tough fight, but then I got him to move more to his right and Terrence really nailed him. I believe he can beat anybody now.”
Crawford is perhaps one of the most versatile fighters in the world because, without warning, he slides from his right-handed stance into that of a southpaw. He is a natural righty and that move makes the right hand his lead hand, and the power result can be devastating.
“It’s not something we plan,” Crawford said. “I’ve just been doing it ever since I was a kid. I do it when the time is right. I trust my instincts, my ability to figure the other guy out. I switch when I feel the moment is right. Some people can’t deal with that because they are fighting two different fighters at the same time. It frustrates them because you are getting to different angles at him.
“I’m very versatile. I can bite down and dig deep inside of me if you want to slug it out, or I can box you and beat you. Either way, I can adjust on the fly.”
Postol, with a height advantage, long arms and sharp elbows, presents problems.
“To me, he’s just another guy like all the others I fought,” Crawford said. “I don’t consider him any different. He’s a tall rangy guy with a long reach. But I’ve seen the tapes. With him, I know you have to watch out for elbows.”
“We always have a plan and if Plan A doesn’t work, we can go to B or C or D. I’m confident because I know who I am. I fight for me and I fight for my family and in some ways I fight for my Omaha neighborhood. I love my hometown and the people love me. They mean so much to me.”
Bob Arum says he would like to make the winner of this fight against Manny Pacquiao. He’s got Nov. 5 set as the date. Floyd Mayweather is dropping hints about coming back. All that potential money makes this fight even bigger.
“I will fight anyone, anywhere and at any time — but I don’t talk about fights that haven’t been made yet,” Crawford said.
He spoke like a man who is totally concentrating on unfinished business.
