[8.8] TERENCE CRAWFORD 35-35(25)-0 [Welterweight & Light-Welterweight & Lightweight]: ESPN online - Boxing.com online -
The Education of Terence Crawford: They’d still be partying when Wiley pulled up. It was 4 a.m. on Larimore Street, with that clatter people make when they’re drinking on the porch, the lit end of a Newport, glowing like a firefly.
Debra Crawford would call to her son: ‘Your white daddy’s here.’
Wiley could tell the remark hurt, as Terence senior – once semi-famous in Omaha as a high school wrestler – was away in the Navy.
‘What you crying about?’ Wiley asked Crawford as he climbed into the truck.
Bud, an eighth grader, would vow never to smoke or drink. Then they’d head up the old Mormon Trail for roadwork – anywhere from three to five miles – before Wiley dropped him off at school. Exactly which school is difficult to recall, as Bud was thrown out of five – all for fighting.
That made him right at home in the CW Boxing Club, whose members were drawn from the ranks of north Omaha’s Bloods, Crips, Gangster Disciples and a branch of Insane Vice Lords that included Bud’s future trainer, Brian McIntyre. While he cuts a Falstaffian figure in the boxing world – ‘BoMac’, as he’s known, wasn’t always this cuddly. McIntyre once put a kid through a glass door. He even shot at a cop. But come afternoon, if he wasn’t locked up, Bo would be in the gym.
‘Carl Washington saved me,’ he says.
By the mid-90s, Washington was counseling gang members full time, leaving most of the boxing – and some of the saving, perhaps – to Midge.
‘Turn your ass back around,’ Midge would yell at Crawford.
The cranky trainer and his recalcitrant charge made for an oddly beautiful pairing, noticed McIntyre, who felt some simpatico with the kid. Crawford was more than a fellow delinquent. BoMac remembered the trepidation with which he’d sparred Bud’s uncle Mike. Bud was just as mean, but even more fluid.
Even Midge would eventually accept Bud's switching style – if not for what it was, then for what it could produce: the CW’s first world champion. Midge had him watch film – Ray Robinson, Ray Leonard, Shane Mosley and early Floyd Mayweather. Still, Bud’s burgeoning technique remained very much his own. From the right side, he had more power. From the left, however, he found a better rhythm, a sadistic southpaw jazz …
By 2008, Crawford turned pro. He was 4-0 on August 30, a night that began typically enough, with an altercation with a bouncer …
Years passed and Crawford remained undercover in the pro game. Even his girlfriend, Esha Person, admitted her disappointment: ‘When we met, I thought he had a job …’
Word of those sessions got around. Still, it was 2014 before Crawford finally got a title shot in Glasgow, with 10,000 fans cheering for a Scotsman named Ricky Burns. Midge, now 73 and in declining health, made the trip, hoping to see Bud become his first protege to win a world title. Miss Debra offered her usual prefight benediction: ‘You ain’t shit. Gonna get your ass kicked.’
As it happened, Crawford won the WBO lightweight belt by unanimous decision. ESPN online article 9 June 2018 Jeff Horn
Terence Crawford is the all-around best fighter in the world today. And even if you insist on being wrong about judging boxing talent, Crawford is no worse than No 3 on any sane, logical list of the sport’s best fighters.
In a perfect world, the uniquely skilled boxer-puncher from Omaha, Nebraska would be a mainstream star. In this imperfect world, he should at least be a high-drawing boxing star, capable of selling PPVs and generating seven-figure TV ratings.
This is not the case, however. As a matter of fact, his promoter (and I use that term very loosely), Bob Arum, seems to have officially stopped caring about getting him real exposure.
The decision to put Crawford’s welterweight debut June 9 against WBO titlist Jeff Horn on ESPN’s new streaming app and not on the main ESPN platform is blatant disrespect and a virtual crotch shot to Crawford and his career earning potential.
Yes, Crawford is bound by the decision he made to allow Arum to promote him. And, yes, promotional stablemate Manny Pacquiao’s flat-out refusal to even acknowledge his existence is a big reason Crawford has not been able to springboard to next-level fame and fortune.
But one would think that Arum and his team at Top Rank would’ve had some sort of back-up plan for the very real possibility that Pacquiao might not willingly want to pass the torch to someone who could potentially mop the canvas with him. They also could be less stubborn about their usual fixation on keeping fights and fighters ‘in house’.
Crawford could be earning big money fighting the likes of Danny Garcia, Shawn Porter, and eventually Errol Spence and Keith Thurman – and he has a solid chance of beating them all. He would certainly be more of an earner and asset to the company fighting ‘out of house’ than by taking on a paper champion for a small audience on a new subscription-based streaming service.
The promise of mainstream exposure energized the boxing world when it was first announced that Arum would be pulling his talent away from the premium cable HBO paywall system and over to basic cable ESPN. Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions project, for various odd and ugly reasons, had been slammed mercilessly for an even bolder push to the mainstream, but the Arum deal was almost universally well-received.
Finally, guys like Crawford and Lomachenko would be getting some attention outside of the niche boxing market – or so the boxing world assumed.
That push has been there for Lomachenko, whose growing fame is being leveraged into a big May 12 bout with Jorge Linares. Meanwhile, Crawford, who delivered solid ratings in his debut ESPN showcase against Julius Indongo in a four-belt junior welterweight unification last August, is getting pushed to smaller waters.
And even if Crawford beats Horn to the delight of a few thousand (maybe a few hundred) hardcore fans, where does he go from there? There’s nobody lined up for him, no real competition within the Top Rank family, and his marketability will be diminished from having performed on a fringe streaming service after nearly 10 months of inactivity.
In general, this is not a good time to be an American boxer. American fight fans are just not embracing their own. One could understand the fan indifference when guys like Andre Berto and Devon Alexander were ‘names’ who failed to deliver on big promise. Even skilled fighters like Bernard Hopkins and Andre Ward were dismissible as acquired tastes.
But the US scene right now is packed with fan-friendly fighters, who do, indeed, put on the type of aggression-based fights fans claim to crave. And a guy like Crawford – who is supremely skilled but is also offense-minded and a fierce finisher – would seem to be precisely the type of fighter Americans love.
An overall stagnant domestic fan base has put Crawford in a bad spot and the jaded, fickle fans seem stuck on investing their time and money on simpler, more exotic brutes. And it sure doesn’t help that those entrusted with promoting Crawford seem to have stopped trying to actually promote him.
At 30 years of age and with the window slowly closing on his physical prime, Terence Crawford has to step up and figure out a way to take full control of his career. Those who are currently in charge of his career path are taking him down the road to nowhere. Boxing.com online 12 April 2018
26) Thomas Dulorme TKO6: US Fight Commentary TV -
v Thomas Dulorme 18 April 2015 WBO Light-Welterweight Arlington, Texas [r1] … Terence Crawford: a mean little fighter … a smart boxer … [r2] … Crawford very calm under pressure … [r3] … In control … first-rate boxing mind … [r4] … He’s adaptable … good right hand … [r5] … A complete boxer … [r6] … And that one [right] may be the only one that matters so far … With surgical precision drops Dulorme again … That is a sensational six-round knockout. US HBO fight commentary