Terence Crawford says he’s moving up to 140 after Gamboa fight

By Boxing News - 06/25/2014 - Comments

crawford655By Scott Gilfoid: In what surely will make promoter Eddie Hearn and his fighter former division world champion Ricky Burns happy, WBO lightweight champion Terence Crawford (23-0, 16 KO’s) says that he’ll be fighting his last fight in the 135 pound division this Saturday night when he defends his title against Yuriorkis Gamboa (23-0, 16 KO’s) at the CenturyLink Center, in Omaha, Nebraska, USA.

This is a big deal potentially for Burns and Hearn, because if Burns has to fight an eliminator bout at WBC to get a shot at champion Omar Figueroa (23-0-1, 17 KO’s), Burns could well lose. I mean, if he has to fight a talent like #2 WBC Jorge Linares, I really can’t see Burns winning that fight.

With Crawford on the verge of vacating his WBO lightweight strap, Burns can then slide on in and fight #1 Raymundo Beltran for the vacant WBO belt, if Hearn can grease the wheels to make sure that happens by convincing the WBO it would be better to have #5 WBO Burns fighting Beltran for the title than it would be for #2 WBO Paulus Moses or #3 WBO Jorge Linares to get a crack at the title.

“This might be my last fight at 135, then I’m gonna go up to 140 and try to do what I’ve done at 135 at 140,” Crawford said to RingTV.com.

Crawford has the kind of talent to where he’ll do just as good at 140 then he did at 135. I can see Crawford immediately walking into the light welterweight division and becoming the best fighter at that weight. He’s got Floyd Mayweather Jr like talent, and if he can just increase his punch output a little, he’ll be another Mayweather easily. There’s no one that can compete with Crawford at light welterweight, absolutely no one.

I just hope Crawford doesn’t waste too much time fighting in the light welterweight division, because he’s got the kind of talent that belongs at welterweight. He shouldn’t burn of valuable time fighting the likes of Ruslan Provodnikov, Chris Algieri, Brandon Rios and Mike Alvardo. Those are decent fights, but hardly the money makers that fights against the likes of Manny Pacquiao, Shawn Porter, and Keith Thurman would bring him.

Gamboa is going to need to get close to Crawford and stay as near as he can to him on Saturday night, because if he lets Crawford get any space to punch, he’ll end up dominating him easily with his 5 inch reach advantage.



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