Crawford: I could have pressed the gas but why?

By Boxing News - 07/25/2016 - Comments

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By Chris Williams: Terence Crawford (29-0, 20 KOs) expressed a disappointing viewpoint after his less than thrilling to watch fight last Saturday night against Viktor Postol (28-1, 12 KOs) by saying that he had the fight under control, so why should he press the fight to his over-matched opponent Postol? Crawford probably could have scored a knockout in this fight if he’d switched gears from 1st to at least 2nd gear.

The KO was there for the 28-year-old Crawford if he’d been willing to step it up a gear to try and make it exciting for the paying fans, who had paid as much as $59.99 to watch the fight on HBO pay-per-view. These are fans that were willing to pay to see the fight.

Crawford could have won them over and many other fans if he had been willing to fight hard to for the KO. Instead, Crawford played it safe and did the minimum to get the victory without taking some lumps in the process. based on this lazy performance from Crawford, I don’t think he rates a fight against Manny Pacquiao or even someone like Ruslan Provodnikov.

“I just boxed today and I just wanted to have fun. I could have pressed the gas but why? I had him frustrated,” said Crawford after the fight.

It’s too bad that Crawford had such a lackadaisical, play it safe attitude about the Postol fight, because when you’re trying to become a superstar, you need to be able to take risks to create fans to impress them. This is why guys like Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Miguel Cotto, Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. have become huge stars in the sport. They were willing to take shots in order to entertain the fans. We didn’t see that from Crawford last Saturday night. He says “I could have pressed the gas but why?” Crawford just doesn’t get it, does he?

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I would have liked to have hoped that his promoter Bob Arum would have sat him down before the fight and given him a lecture of the importance of him going out and fighting tooth and nail to make it exciting for the fans. After all, this fight was a potential dress rehearsal for a much, much bigger fight against the Filipino superstar Manny Pacquiao for November 5.

Crawford needed to win in a sensational fashion so that he would drive interest in a fight between him and the aging Pacquiao. Besides that, Crawford needed to show vulnerability and a willingness to brawl against Postol so that Pacquiao would be more inclined to take the fight. Working talking about an older fighter about to turn 38, who is a politician in the Philippines, and who has never done well against the more mobile fighters he’s faced. If the shoe was on the other foot and Crawford was 38, slower, older, working as a politician, would he want to fight a guy that runs around the ring to avoid getting hit? I don’t think Crawford would. If he’d made his millions in the sport and was slowing down, why would he agree to fight a guy that doesn’t stay stationary inside the ring? I think Crawford would ignore the fighter. That’s why I think Crawford blew his opportunity last Saturday night by not going for the knockout early against Postol.

“I hope everyone enjoyed the fight. What can I say? I feel great,” said Crawford. “I wanted him to throw the right, that’s why I fought him in the southpaw stance so I can counter him….Floyd is one of the guys I looked up to as a fighter.”

One of the media members said that Crawford reminded him at times of Floyd Mayweather Jr. I can see what the media member was talking about. When Crawford was moving, he did remind me of Mayweather. However, there’s a big difference between how Mayweather fights and how Crawford fought Postol last Saturday night. While Mayweather would move at times in his fights, he mostly would stand in front of his opponents and actually fight them to make it exciting for fans.

What we saw with Crawford last Saturday was him moving almost nonstop from side to side. Yes, Crawford would stop every now and then to throw some punches, but I think it was 90-10 in terms of him moving and fighting. He was moving much more than he was fighting. You didn’t see that with Mayweather. It was more like 10 percent movement and 90 percent fighting.

Crawford looks like Mayweather when he moves around the ring, but he doesn’t fight like him at all, period. Mayweather was more willing to fight, much faster as far as hand speed goes, more accurate, faster reflexes, and far better defensively. There’s no comparison between the two fighters. As one fan said last Saturday, ‘Crawford looked like a poor man’s version of Mayweather.’ I wouldn’t say that Crawford looked like a poor version of Mayweather. I would say he doesn’t look even close to Mayweather in terms of talent. I think Mayweather is worlds apart from Crawford in the talent and especially the entertainment department both inside and outside of the ring. Had that been Mayweather inside the ring last Saturday night instead of Crawford, I believe that he would have gone for the knockout of Postol and wouldn’t have had the lackadaisical attitude of “I could have pressed the gas but why? I had him frustrated,” that we heard from Crawford.