Indongo towers over Crawford during face off

By Boxing News - 08/18/2017 - Comments

Image: Indongo towers over Crawford during face off

By Chris Williams: IBF/WBA 140lb champion Julius Indongo (22-0 11 KOs) towered over WBC/WBO light welterweight champion Terence “Bud” Crawford (31-0, 22 KOs) during Thursday’s press conference for their scheduled fight this Saturday night on ESPN and ESPN Deportes at the Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska.

During the intense face off, the 5’9” Crawford looked a lot shorter than Indongo, who is listed a 5’10 ½”, but he appeared taller than that. Indongo was a like big welterweight standing next to Crawford. This should be interesting to see how well Crawford deals with the size of Indongo. Crawford seemed to be trying his best to intimidate Indongo, but it useless. Crawford finally gave up and started laughing. It was clear that Crawford wasn’t going to unnerve Indongo, who is a 2012 Olympian and not some kid that just put on a pair of gloves for the first time. Whether Crawford likes it or not, he has a real opponent that will be staring across from him for the first time in his career. Indongo is far and away superior to anyone Crawford has fought up to this point.

In Crawford’s other fight against a taller fight against the 5’11” Viktor Postol, he didn’t have to worry about getting hit hard, because he’s not a puncher. Indongo is stronger, faster and more willing to let his hands go.

Postol waited until the 12th round to fight aggressively, and by that time, it was too late. Crawford got on his bike getting the worst of an exchange with Postol, and he then ran out the round to preserve the victory.

“I will do exactly that. I will take away what he is confident in doing,” said Crawford. ”He does have good movement and is very confident. I want to test his body and cut off the ring at times. But, you all will have to show up and see how the fight will play out.”

If Crawford tests Indongo’s body, he better have eyes that are looking upwards for the big power left that he likes to throw. I didn’t like the way Crawford’s head was snapping backwards on his slender neck each time Felix Diaz hit him in his last fight on May 20. The 5’5 ½” Diaz isn’t a big puncher, and he’s really short as well. He was giving away almost 3 inches in height to the 5’8” Crawford. This prevented Diaz from being able to land his shots, because Crawford would back straight up and hold his left arm far out in front of him to keep Diaz from getting close to him. Never the less, Diaz was able to get close enough to Crawford on a number of occasions to land some big shots.

The way that Crawford looked when he was getting hit, I don’t think he could have withstood getting hit with 20 solid head shots from Diaz getting knocked out. It’s going to be a lot tougher for Crawford to do what he did to the taller, longer armed Indongo. Crawford won’t be able to land his shots from long range like he was doing against Diaz. Also, Crawford’s habit of sticking his left arm far out in front of him in order to keep his opponents from getting close enough to hit him won’t work against Indongo, because he’s got the reach and height advantage. This should be an interesting fight.

Crawford normally fights out of the orthodox stance. However, he frequently switches his fighting stance back and forth needlessly from orthodox to southpaw and back to orthodox again. Crawford does this even when he’s fighting guys that are totally overwhelmed by him. I don’ t why he feels he’s got to keep switching. He doesn’t seem to fight as well in the southpaw stance as he does when he’s fighting with his normal orthodox stance. I think he just does it because he thinks he’s confusing his opponents. It’s a waste of time. It’s needless. I can understand changing stances if you’re getting dominated or worked over by your opponent, but when you’re fighting a guy that is totally overmatched like John Molina Jr. was against Crawford, why tinker with what’s already working? I wouldn’t be surprised if Indongo knocks Crawford out if he switches to the southpaw stance. You can switch stances against poor opposition, but if you do that against someone that know actually knows how to fight and has talent, unlike the guys that Crawford has been fighting recently, you’re going to be in deep, deep trouble.

During the question and answer period, Crawford let the boxing fans know that when he moves up to 147, he wants to fight welterweight champion Keith Thurman in his first fight at the new weight. Crawford was clearly dreaming. That fight is likely not going to happen during his career as long as he’s with Top Rank and Thurman with Al Haymon. But it was nice to still hear Crawford talk about a fight that won’t likely happen under the current climate in boxing.

”He’s the number one guy in the welterweight division,” Crawford told the boxing media about Thurman. ”Why take number 2, 3 or whatever? When I go to welterweight, I want the No.1 guy at welterweight, right away.”

I hope Crawford doesn’t hold his breath waiting for Crawford to give him a title shot. It’s not happening in my opinion. If Crawford wants a title shot against Thurman, he’s likely going to need to work his way up the rankings until he’s rated No1 with the WBA or WBC. By the time that happens, Thurman will have likely already fought Errol Spence Jr. and been knocked out by him. I think Spence would be a very match-up for Crawford. That would be another Spence vs. Kell Brook type of fight, but even more of a mismatch, because Crawford doesn’t have Brook’s hand speed, size or punching power. Brook rehydrates to around 170. Crawford is a long ways away from being that size. He would be out of his league against Spence in my opinion.

I’m not even sure if Thurman would fight Crawford if he became his mandatory. I could see Thurman vacating that time and letting Crawford have it rather than dealing with the promotional issues a fight like that would entail. I don’t think the Crawford-Thurman is ever going to happen while Crawford is with Top Rank and Thurman with Haymon. I do think Thurman would destroy Crawford if that fight took place. It would be an easy fight for Thurman, because he’s a naturally bigger, stronger and faster fighter than Crawford. It would be a mismatch. I don’t think it would be a good career move for Crawford to take a fight with Thurman, Spence or Shawn Porter Even Danny Garcia would be a really dangerous fight for Crawford. Crawford hasn’t faced a puncher yet during his career. He fought Raymundo Beltran, Ricky Burns, Victor Postol and John Molina Jr. Those are not huge punchers.

It really hasn’t been established yet whether Thurman is the true number 1 guy. He beat Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia, but those are not the unbeatable fighters. Porter was already beaten by Kell Brook. Garcia was arguably beaten by Mauricio Herrera. The only reason Danny Garcia was recently the WBC welterweight champion is because the World Boxing Council allowed him to fight Robert Guerrero for their vacant WBC title instead of someone good like Errol Spence Jr. or Porter.

The difference between Indongo and Crawford was pretty dramatic as far as their personalities go. Indongo was very humble and polite. He wasn’t talking trash or how he was going to take advantage of Crawford by forcing him to stop running and actually fight. Indongo could have said a lot, but he didn’t. He took the high road and showed class.

”I’m just a boxer, you know. The Troyanovsky KO just happened, it came out of nowhere. I will just be me and let God take care of the rest. I’m excited and blessed for the opportunity to be on such a big stage,” said Indongo.