Following Terence Crawford’s unanimous decision win over Israil Madrimov to snag a junior middleweight title over the weekend, Crawford appeared at the post-fight press conference to give some of his impressions on the fight. Check out some excerpts of what Crawford had to say about fighting Madrimov below.
Crawford on fighting at 154
“I felt great. It was no different from fighting at 147, to be honest. Israil was just a strong opponent and we knew that coming in the gate.”
On how he would compare Madrimov’s power to Errol Spence
“I don’t know, they have their moments. Both of them was very strong but Madrimov was strong.”
On dealing with Madrimov’s persistent feinting
“It wasn’t like disrupting me or anything, it was just his patience. He was patient. He was waiting, he would feint, feint, feint, and just keep feinting until he get a little closer, a little closer. So he was just real patient in there, he wasn’t rushing in with nothing, he wasn’t wild winging shots like we normally seen him in the previous fights. He was very disciplined.”
On why he didn’t fight more in the orthodox stance if Madrimov was having success landing his straight right
“Well, you know, the right hand wasn’t bothering me. I wasn’t really too much worried about the right hand. He landed a couple of times at the end of the round where he was trying to steal a round but I was just trying to counter him but at the same time he had a good game plan, he had a lot of feints and I was just trying to dictate when he was going to come. A lot of times I was wrong.”
On if he saw a lot of himself in Madrimov’s performance
“Nah, I won’t say all that because I was touching him up with the jab. I think my jab was beating him up all through the fight but he landed a couple of right hands that was telling for the judges or the fans to go ‘oohh’ but it wasn’t nothing that I ain’t ever seen before.”