By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Jeff Horn says he’s afraid of Terence Crawford ahead of their June 9 fight on ESPN at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Horn says that he feels that they want him to be afraid so that they can gain an edge against him, but he’s not falling for it. He plans on fighting his game plan to neutralize the 30-year-old Crawford’s game so he can beat him.
Crawford (32-0, 23 KOs) will be competing for the first time in the 147lb weight class after campaigning in the 135 and 140 lb. weight divisions. It’s thought by some that Crawford will dominate the welterweight division in the same way he did at lightweight and light welterweight. However, it’s a bigger jump in weight going from 140 to 147 than it was when Crawford moved up from 135 to 140.
The welterweight division has four very good fighters – Errol Spence Jr., Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia – that Crawford is going to have a lot of problems trying to beat. That’s if Crawford’s promoters at Top Rank are ever able to make fights against those guys, and there’s a very good chance that Crawford may only get a chance to fight one of them and that’ Spence. That’s the wrong guy for Crawford unfortunately, as Spence is bigger, stronger and has a longer reach. But before Crawford can even think about fighting the likes of Spence, he has go through the 30-year-old Horn (18-0-1, 12 KOs).
”They’re trying to make me feel nervous and to doubt myself, but I haven’t done that for a second,” Horn said to Fox Sports. “I’m not scared of this guy. You have to be confident in boxing. If you go in there thinking you’re going to lose then that’s exactly what will happen.”
Horn can’t count on the referee taking hands off approach to the fight when or if he starts roughing Crawford up the way he did Manny Pacquiao in 2017.
Horn might not get away with the same type of roughing up tactics that he was allowed to do against Pacquiao. But it might be worth it for Horn to give up a couple of points for fouling if he’s able to throw Crawford off his game, and possibly knock him out. When Crawford does get hit hard, he looks just like anybody does when they get nailed with a shot. In fact, I think Crawford’s ability to take shots might not be as good as a lot of fighter, because he seems so worried when he does get hit. If you look at the shots Crawford got hit with by Felix Diaz in 2017, his head would snap back violently in a whiplash manner, and looked bad. Seeing Crawford get hit like that, one gets the sense that he’s not going to be able to take too punishment from Jeff Horn on June 9 without getting hurt. Whether Horn can jump on Crawford and finish him is
It’s not even worth talking about the intimidation stuff, because it’s so common. The better fighters typically don’t waste their time attempting to psyche out their opponents by intimidation, as they have enough confidence in tier skills that they don’t need to resort to intimidation. Obviously, Crawford is looking for any edge he can get in the fight, which suggests that, he might lack confidence in himself. If Crawford doesn’t have the size, chin and enough talent to succeed in the welterweight division, it’s going to get found out eventually no matter how much he tries to intimidate his opponents.
Crawford will be leaving his hometown of Brisbane, Australia this week on Wednesday to travel to the U.S for the fight in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“I’ve worked harder for this fight than I ever have. I’ll be pushing hard, pressuring him throughout the fight. I’ll be thinking about my family, about my wife and daughter, going to the places that lift me when I need to dig deep,” Horn said.
Horn is going to need to mug Crawford like he did against Manny Pacquiao last year in their fight on July 2 in Brisbane, Australia. Horn used his head to rough up Pacquiao to win a close 12 round decision. Even with the roughing up of Pacquiao, Horn came close to being knocked out in the 9th. Perhaps he would have been stopped in the championship rounds if Pacquiao hadn’t backed off after gassing out in round 10, 11 and 12. For Horn to beat Crawford, he’s going to need to take his roughhouse tactics to another level and REALLY rough the Nebraska native up. I don’t know if Horn is going to be able to get away with those types of tactics. Referee Robert Byrd may stop Horn if he gets too physical inside the ring. Byrd also has a habit of breaking the action when fighters are on the inside trying to exchange. That’s good for Crawford, because he’s not an inside fighter and he lacks the upper body strength to deal with Horn’s inside fighting. Without the help of referee Byrd, Crawford is going to be at a disadvantage each time Horn is able to get his mitts on hi in close.
“He (Crawford) has a devastating left hand, he can hurt you in the body or in the head. He’s able to switch-hit. But that’s all right, I have a few plans of my own,” Horn said.
Horn is going to have to keep in close at all times for him to take away Crawford’s ability to control the fight at range, because he’s going to need the fight to be fought a distance for him to do well. Crawford is as slippery as an eel. For Horn to catch Crawford, he’s going to have to double time to catch up to him, as he’s very good at moving around the ring. If you look at Crawford’s fights against John Molina Jr. and Victor Postol, he was able to keep away from them to avoid their shots whenever he wanted to. There was obviously a lot of wasted energy on Crawford’s part, because he was doing fine against both of them when he was standing and fighting, but for some reason he likes to run when his opponents try and engage. This has to be a learned pattern from when Crawford wasn’t as good as he is now, because he looks out of place moving away from fighters than he’s better than. Personally, I think Crawford is afraid when his opponents are coming after him in an aggressive way, so gets on his bike and runs from them.
We don’t know how good Crawford is because he’s not fought anyone really good during his career other than Yuriorkis Gamboa, who was two divisions smaller than him. Gamboa is the best fighter on Crawford’s resume by far. The rest of the guys that Crawford has fought were flawed fighters like Viktor Postol, Dierry Jean, Ricky Burns, Julius Indongo and John Molina Jr. The fact of the matter is, Crawford left the 140lb division without fighting Regis Prograis, Kiryl Relikh, Josh Taylor and Sergey Lipinets. Those are probably the four best fighters in the division. Jose Ramirez is a decent slugger, but very basic. Crawford would do well against him. Horn is more proven than Crawford because of his win over Manny Pacquiao. Crawford doesn’t have a similar win on his record.
“It won’t be like Brisbane, that’s for sure. There will be plenty of boos, but you can use that to your advantage as a fighter, too,” Horn said.
Horn obviously hasn’t fought in the U.S before. The U.S boxing fans don’t typically boo foreign fighters. The fans want to see action-packed fights, so they tend to boo mainly when there’s a lack of action going on in the fight. The fans will boo a fighter if he’s running and trying to stall out the fight, which is what we saw happen with Crawford in the 12th round of his fight against Viktor Postol in in July 2016 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Even though Crawford was the crowd favorite in the fight, the boxing fans still booed him in the 12th when he started running and sticking his tongue out at Postol. The fans turned against Crawford, because he ended the fight on a bad note. The way that Crawford finished that fight on the run spoiled it for him, as the fans were not pleased with what they saw from him. So, as long as Horn puts in a strong effort in every round, the fans aren’t going to be booing him. They prefer to see guys like Horn rather than runners, because that style doesn’t fly in the U.S.