By Chris Williams: A star was born tonight with WBO lightweight champion Terence Crawford (24-0, 17 KO’s) beating the best fighter in the lightweight division in Yuriorkis Gamboa (23-1, 16 KO’s) by a 9th round knockout in front of a crowd of 10,843 fans at the CenturyLink Center, in Omaha, Nebraska, USA.
Crawford showed that he could do it all in displaying both power and boxing skills in knocking Gamboa down 4 times before the fight was stopped in the 9th. With his win, Crawford will now be going up to the light welterweight division to try his hand in that weight class. Top Rank commentator Larry Merchant says that he wants to see Crawford vs. Manny Pacquiao at 140, according to Steve Kim.
I think that would be a great fight, and it’ll solve Bob Arum’s problems of trying to find a suitable opponent for Pacquiao’s November 22nd fight in Macao, China. Arum no longer needs to worry about trying to get Juan Manuel Marquez, Danny Garcia and Chris Algieri for the fight because Crawford would be the perfect guy for the job.
Crawford would give Pacquiao huge headaches with his power and boxing ability. I wouldn’t be surprised if Khan tastes defeat again if Arum chooses to make that fight. Even against the blazing fast Gamboa, Crawford barely got hit all night long in tonight’s fight. If a fighter like Gamboa wasn’t able to lay a hand on Crawford, then just imagine how tough it would be for a fighter like Pacquiao to touch him with his shots.
It’s doubtful that Arum will make the Crawford-Pacquiao fight because one of the two fighters would lose, and that would in turn decrease the value of the loser of the fight. It would help raise Crawford’s stock and possibly turn him into a PPV attraction, but the cost would be huge for the loser.
Gamboa was a true warrior tonight in taking punishment from Crawford for 9 rounds. A lot of fighters would have folded early from the big shots that Crawford was landing, but not Gamboa. He took the shots and punished Crawford at times.
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