By Jeff Aranow: Unbeaten Terence “Bud” Crawford (32-0, 23 KOs) become the undisputed 140 lb. champion in defeating IBF, WBA 140 lb. champion Julius Indongo (22-1, 11 KOs) by a 3rd round knockout on Saturday night in front of a large sellout crowd at the Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Crawford knocked Indongo down with a perfectly placed left to the body in the 3rd round. Referee Jack Reiss then counted the 34-year-old Indongo out. Indongo was badly hurt from the body shot, and he was grimacing in pain while lying on his side. There was no chance he was ever going to get up time to beat the referee’s count. The official time of the stoppage came at 1:38.
In addition to the knockdown in round 3, Crawford also knocked Indongo down in round 2 with a chopping left hand to the back of his head. Indongo was bending forward at the waist at the time Crawford hit him with a left to the back of the head. Indongo wasn’t hurt. He was knocked down more due to him being off balance.
Crawford got the better of Indongo in the 1st round after landing a nice left hand to the head early in the round. Towards the end of the round, Crawford nailed Indongo with a right hook counter shot. It was a good shot. It was still a close round.
Indongo came out more aggressive in round 2. He connected with some big lefts and rights. It looked like Indongo had the edge in the round at the time that Crawford knocked him down late in the round. Indongo did a good job of coming back from the knockdown to land some nice shots to the head of Crawford, who tried in vain to finish him off.
In round 3, it was all Indongo, as he came out swinging for the fences with big left hands one after another. Crawford did an excellent job of waiting for the perfect moment to nail Indongo with a left to the body that dropped him on the canvas. The rest is history. Indongo couldn’t get back to his feet, and the fight was stopped after referee Jack Reiss counted him out.
After the fight, Crawford insisted that he should take Andre Ward’s place at the No.1 pound for pound fighter in Ring Magazine’s ratings. I don’t think it matters. That’s stuff that only the hardcore boxing fans care about and only a small select amount of those fans. Most casual boxing fans just want to see lots of action and blood. There wasn’t any blood tonight. Just counter punching from Crawford.
The positive in tonight’s win for Crawford is he didn’t use a lot of movement and taunting like he’d done in his fights against Felix Diaz, Viktor Postol and John Molina Jr. It was good to see Crawford stand his ground and not run around the ring. The one negative for Crawford was he rarely initiated action. He was in the counter punching mode for most of the fight, looking to counter everything that Indongo threw.
Even though Crawford won the fight, it wasn’t really exciting to watch at all times. It was boring at times, because Crawford was just waiting to land single shot counters. He wasn’t fighting I an exciting manner like Saul Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin. If you’re to become a star in boxing and get the fans to want to pay to see you fight, you got to do more than that. I don’t know that Crawford was exciting enough to make fans want to pay to see his fights. He doesn’t get hit, and he just looks to counter all the time. It’s not really exciting to watch. I doubt that the boxing fans are going to want to pay to see Crawford fight.
With the win, Crawford is now the unified light welterweight champion. He holds all 4 of the titles (IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO) at 140. Crawford was asked what he wants to do with his career after the fight, and he said he wants to think about it. Said he wants to rest and go finishing. If Crawford stays at 140, he doesn’t have a lot of options for big fights in that weight class. The only options are Mikey Garcia and Adrien Broner. Garcia hasn’t seemed too eager in fighting Crawford. Garcia is more interested in fighting super featherweight Vasyl Lomachenko. I don’t think Garcia will move up to 140 right now. He recently beat Broner by a 12 round decision, but his power didn’t look good at that weight. Crawford is likely going to need to move up to welterweight if he wants to get bigger fights.
The only fight that Crawford has a high degree of success at getting is the winner of the November fight between WBO welterweight champion Jeff Horn and Manny Pacquiao. Crawford’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank has already commented that he wants to have him travel to Australia to be on hand for the Horn-Pacquiao 2 rematch so that he can try and match him against the winner of that fight. I think that might be a pipe dream on the part of the 85-year-old Arum. Pacquiao has not shown interest in fighting the 29-year-old Crawford. Pacquiao obviously doesn’t want to be a stepping stone for Crawford and Top Rank to turn the Nebraska native into a star at his expense. I see Pacquiao retiring if he beats Horn. Arum thinks that he’ll be able to get Pacquiao to agree to fight Crawford if he offers him enough money. I don’t know if the money is going to be there though, as Pacquiao would likely need to take a pay cut from what he’ll be making in the Horn fight so that he can face Crawford. Arum will likely tell Pacquiao that they’ll stick the Pacquiao-Crawford fight on Top Rank PPV, but that fight likely won’t sell. Crawford already tried PPV last year in his fight with Viktor Postol on HBO PPV, and that fight brought in just 50,000 buys. It would lunacy for Pacquiao to agree to fight Crawford on PPV unless Arum is going to give him a huge guaranteed purse. Whatever Pacquiao makes in the Horn rematch, it’s likely that he’ll want a lot more to fight Crawford. Why would Pacquiao want to take a pay cut for a perceived bigger threat of fighting Crawford? Pacquiao could just fight Horn a third time and make better money than he’d get for fighting Crawford, who has a style is all wrong for Pacquiao. Crawford is a counter puncher, and that’s not the type of fighter that Pacquiao likes to fight. He prefers to face sluggers.