By Chris Williams: Terence Crawford is failing to receive the praise that some of his adoring fans feel he deserves for his sixth-round knockout victory over EBU champion David Avanesyan last Saturday night on BLK Prime pay-per-view.
Avanesyan had already been knocked out in six rounds by Egidijus
Kavaliauskas in 2018 and soundly beaten by past-his-prime Lamont Peterson in 2017.
While Avanesyan did come into the Crawford fight with a six-fight winning streak, his wins were against second-tier opposition and not world-class fighters.
Some fans wondered why Crawford’s gloves split during the fight, and they saw that as suspicious. People asked the obvious question afterward about why would both of Crawford’s gloves split during the fight.
The critics of Crawford’s performance point out that Avanesyan hit him a lot and looked slow, fighting at a pace generally seen by heavyweights rather than 147-pound fighters.
You could see that Crawford has aged badly in the last four years and isn’t the same fighter he once was.
Fans feel that if Crawford was going to walk away from the Errol Spence fight, he should have fought one of these killers:
- Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis
- Vergil Ortiz Jr
- Regis Prograis
- Jermell Charlo
- Tim Tszyu
- Sebastian Fundora
Crawford is never going to receive the approval that some think he deserves because he’s not fighting high-caliber opposition.
He doesn’t deserve to be on the pound-for-pound list because of the mediocre opposition he’s faced, and he bailed when he had the chance to prove himself against Spence.
Crawford’s opposition at 147
- David Avanesyan
- Shawn Porter
- Kell Brook
- Amir Khan
- Jeff Horn
- Egidijus Kavaliauskas
“We all expected Bud to win that fight, and well have been talking about how he knocked out his last nine opponents. We all have talked about how great he is because he’s a pound-for-pound king,” said Akin Reyes to the DAZN Boxing Show about WBO welterweight champion Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford in his win over David Avanesyan last Saturday night in Omaha, Nebraska.
“We want to see it happen. He [Crawford] was fighting a guy that was coming in with a six-knockout streak who was looking phenomenal against great undefeated prospects like Josh Kelly,” said AKin in going overboard with his praise of the 34-year-old EBU welterweight champion Avaneysan.
“The guy showed that ‘I’m coming to fight, I still have the momentum,’ and Bud did what he did [scoring a sixth round knockout over Avaneysan].
“Let me address the arena and the almost 18,000 people that came for Terence Crawford. He brings them out in Omaha, and he never disappoints when it comes to excitement.
“I expected a stoppage win, but I didn’t expect a flat-out going-to-sleep knockout, but Bud has proven that he’s the hardest puncher in the division,” said Reyes. “Can you argue that?”
“That’s a claim that I’ve been saying for a while,” said Barak Bess about the 35-year-old Crawford being the hardest puncher in the division. “I also say the same thing. All I’ve been saying all this weekend is, ‘what do the fans want?’
“I’m sick & tired of people trying to blame Bud for fights not happening,” Bess continued. “We know now that’s not the case, and you really can’t blame other fighters, and you can’t blame Errol Spence either.
https://youtu.be/g5mQg2CoCt4?t=56
“Obviously, it’s the politics behind the scenes, and what else do you want? Everybody Bud is getting in the ring with, he’s knocking them out. This is ten fights in a row.
“When GGG [Gennadiy Golovkin] was doing that, and nobody thought he was fighting the top guys at the time when he had this 20-fight streak of knockouts, nobody thought that when Jim Lampley was praising him on HBO.
“He was fighting 154-pounders sometimes, and he’s a 160-lb fighter, and everybody gave him the praise that they felt he deserved. But for some reason, with Terence Crawford, they’re not giving him the praise.
“He’s a small guy himself, and he came into the division and stopped a guy that [Manny] Pacquiao couldn’t stop [Jeff Horn]. Pacquiao couldn’t stop Jeff Horn. He’s huge, a big guy.
“Crawford was just coming up [to 147], a small guy, and stopped him. He stopped guys that other guys couldn’t stop or beating them better. He stopped Shawn Porter. Nobody in the world could do that.
“Porter was visibly hurt in the second knockdown. His father threw in the towel because he saw his son getting hurt. This is a special fighter.
“Yes, we want to see him fight Spence, but don’t destroy his credibility because he hasn’t fought the guy that you want to see fight yet. Of course, I want to see him fight,” said Bess.
“I’m ignoring all those critics that are complaining about this fight,” said Reyes. “The man [Avanesyan] has to feed his family and got the opportunity to fight a guy that will give a lot of other welterweights hell in there.
“When you take care of business and dispatch a guy like that, that’s where the discredit comes. ‘Oh, this guy was this. This guy was that.’
“Go do your history, watch his last six fights and look at what he was able to do with his [Avanesyan] last six opponents. It shows you how great Terence Crawford really is.
“Hopefully, we get the fight we all want down the line, but that’s not to say that Terence has got to kneel and comply with whatever the other team and the other party wants.
“It has to make sense for him as well. He’s earned the right to agree on a fight that makes sense for him and his family just as it would for Spence. If Spence were to fight David Avanesyan, I’d give him the same amount of credit. I wouldn’t throw no shots on it.
“If that was the opponent in front of him. He did what he had to do with a live dog, and he proved to the world that he’s still a pound-for-pound top dog, alright?
“At some point, this fight is going to come up again, and this knockout. Maybe we’ll get Terence on our show, and we’ll talk a little further about it,” said Reyes.