LOS ANGELES – Terence Crawford has made a career of doing things his way, banking on and believing in himself unflinchingly when others doubted him.
Whether it was traveling internationally to win his first belt against a foe he describes as his best opponent yet, cleaning out the 140-pound division or sweeping through the talented welterweight class.
Go back in time on that last one, to the occasion in his Nebraska gym when Crawford was working out in anticipation of landing the undisputed showdown one year ago this week against unbeaten three-belt champion Errol Spence Jr.
Crawford was drenched in sweat, his trainer Brian “Bomac” McIntyre recalls, and let out a defining – and accurate – declaration/prediction: “I’m gonna fuck him up, Bo!”
And look at how it played out: The gifted and brutal Crawford, only briefly sizing up Spence before letting loose a barrage of sophisticated techniques and power punches that dropped the proud Texan three times before Crawford finished him off by ninth-round technical knockout.
“Spence still ain’t fought,” Crawford noted in a recent “All the Smoke Fight” conversation with Andre Ward, the Hall of Fame two-division champion.
If there’s one thing to respect, it’s a man of his word.
That’s Terence Crawford.
The principled and determined three-division champion has quickly earned the admiration of the sport’s current top power broker, Saudi Arabia’s Turki Alalshikh, who has placed Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) atop this stacked card that comes to BMO Stadium in Los Angeles Saturday night.
Crawford has been appointed an ambassador for Alalshikh’s Riyadh Season.
It’s a mutual-admiration club in that Crawford has high praise for Alakshikh’s power moves of breaking down promotional and broadcasting walls to make the best possible fights, including the undisputed matchups that Alalshikh has already staged and will host again soon.
“The money’s going to be right – you’re going to fight him,” Crawford said to Ward in speaking about the potential code Alalshikh is moving toward bringing the sport under one umbrella. “They’ve got money to blow … the money is nothing to them. They’re doing this for y’all, the people who want to see these two high-class fighters fight.”
And so it goes in his first fight as a junior middleweight, as Crawford is cutting right to the chase by pursuing the World Boxing Association’s new champion, Israil Madrimov (10-0-1, 7 KOs), of Uzbekistan.
“[Crawford] is a tough guy and he wants that 154 title,” McIntyre told BoxingScene at Tuesday’s grand arrivals on the Santa Monica Pier. “He wants to continually push himself to the next level, and Madrimov is one of the guys that’s in the way.
“[Crawford] doesn’t need to prove anything to me. I already know what ‘Bud’ can do. But watch him prove something to the world. Watch him.”
Victory would make Crawford a four-division champion and allow him to join the rarefied air that includes another active fighter with four belts whom Crawford has for years battled for pound-for-pound supremacy, Mexico’s Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
Alalshikh is trying to arrange a Crawford-versus-Alvarez fight should Crawford defeat Madrimov and unified super middleweight champion Alvarez successfully defend his belts Sept. 14 against substantial underdog Edgar Berlanga.
And while Crawford obviously enjoys the extra wealth that accompanies his bond with Alalshikh, those who know the fighter best understand the financial package also accompanies legacy as the motivating factors pushing Crawford toward that bout.
McIntyre told BoxingScene that Crawford’s ultimate pursuit of Alvarez is more about the fighter’s internal drive than how greatly he’ll be compensated.
The trainer says Crawford is ideally rested after taking the year off since the Spence triumph, and he is prepared to raise his voice again.
Just like the moment when he let it be known Spence was doomed.
McIntyre, boxing’s 2023 Trainer of the Year, says his fighter can realize the Canelo fight.
“He can do it, he can do it,” McIntyre said.
Crawford knows boxing like few others. If he sees something, believe him.
A promoter who has worked with Crawford previously understands.
“You need to remember, Canelo was a champion first at 154 and he’s never really gotten all that much bigger. … I still see him as a 154-pounder who’s added on the weight,” the promoter said.
So if Crawford can prove he can carry these next seven pounds effectively by impressively defeating Madrimov on Saturday, he’s willing to test himself by adding 14 more to settle who is the greatest fighter of their time.
“That’s how he is,” McIntyre said. “He has to know. He wants to press to that next level. Always.”
Hall of Fame broadcaster Jim Lampley, here in L.A. to call the fight in written form for PPV.com, has envisioned the possibility of Crawford-Alvarez since last year.
“It’s a fight that can happen because Terence is an innately competitive human being, always looking for ways to test himself while looking for ways to feel belittled if people don’t give him his proper credit,” Lampley said.
“I’m sure he took notice of those who picked Spence. … He has an extremely competitive arrogance in that he’s bothered and offended by thoughts that anyone can beat him.”
Former HBO play-by-play man Lampley hails Crawford as the last great fighter of the HBO era, and in those times, Lampley witnessed Crawford’s promoter, Top Rank, elevating others to the promotional heights that Crawford knew he deserved.
Lampley sees the fighter summon all the motivation he needs from that slight and others.
“He wants to prove the people who underestimated him wrong,” Lampley said.
He may not have been a U.S. Olympian, but Crawford and his team endured the grind of training in America’s heartland to become a double-fisted power puncher with a hellish denial of adversity and one of the nastiest streaks of this generation.
“I haven’t spoken to him about this. This is an educated guess” Lampley said. “But I feel he’s learned this is a business. He’s in there to fight, to hurt the other guy and get out.”
If he does that again Saturday, Crawford will surely look ahead – right into the eyes of the redhead whom he has competed with for pound-for-pound supremacy over the better part of a decade.
“If the opportunity presents himself, he’s going to [fight Alvarez],” McIntyre said. “I know Terence. He likes those challenges.”
Will Crawford get the Canelo fight?
The trainer said he and Crawford believe Alalshikh will invest in that bout.
“If it comes on the table and it’s there, it’s a possibility,” McIntyre said.
Said Lampley: “At the end of the day, it’s up to Canelo. To me, Terence Crawford is the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world. But Canelo is the No. 1 dollar-for-dollar fighter. Which is most important?
“When you’re trying to exercise what you want, it’s best to be the No. 1 dollar-for-dollar fighter. Who does [Crawford] mimic with that? Sugar Ray Robinson. It’s exactly who Ray Robinson was – a fighter who knew pound-for-pound is good but dollar-for-dollar is the best.
“The way they both want it … it’s carried out with the same kind of cold-bloodedness.”