By Allan Fox: Terence Crawford says he feels that a victory for him over Jermell Charlo at 154 will make him the “All time great in boxing,” as he thinks that’s a big accomplishment.
Crawford’s resume is way too weak for him to even be in the top 20 of all time greats in the sport, as the quality fighters he’d have fought would be Errol Spence Jr, Jermell & Yuriorkis Gamboa during his 15-year career.
When you get a fighter that has fought only two quality guys in their entire career like Crawford, there’s no way you can entertain the idea of putting them anywhere near the #1 spot of all time greats. That would be taking away the meaning of being #1.
The rest of Terence’s fights have been filler-type, with him facing faded old champs, fringe contenders, and obscure fighters.
If all it requires is for Crawford to have wins over Errol SSpence Jr & Jermell for him to earn the #1 spot as the all time great in boxing, that would be dramatically lowering the bar.
What about the true greats like Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, Roberto Duran & Salvador Sanchez, who beat many more than just two excellent fighters in their careers?
Crawford’s resume = weak as water
Obviously, fans will laugh at Crawford’s deluded view of seeing himself as the best the sport has ever seen if he beats a weight-drained Jermell (35-1-1, 19 KO) after he returns from the 168-lb division once he finishes beating undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez in consecutive fights.
“It’s up to him. He gave me the opportunity to fight him. If that’s what he wants to do, I’ll give it back to him,” said Terence Crawford to Shawn Porter’s Youtube channel, talking about Errol Spence Jr. wanting a rematch after being massacred on July 29th.
Crawford should wait on the rematch with Spence until Errol gets a couple of tune-ups under his belt at 154, so he can get his faculties together and mentally return from his knockout loss.
It wouldn’t be a fair fight if the rematch occurred in December before Spence was given a chance to rebuild his shattered self-confidence.
“Outside of him, I was definitely looking at the Jermell Charlo fight, but they just stripped him of the WBO. So now it’s going to be kind of hard to be a three-weight world champion if you don’t come back and fight Tim Tszyu and be successful after his fight with Canelo,” said Crawford.
We don’t know for sure if Jermell will return to the 154-lb division to fight Crawford. Look at it this way. If Jermell dominates Canelo Alvarez twice, why would he want to drain back to 154 for a pay cut to fight Crawford? It doesn’t make sense.
Jermell would be the A-side after he beats Canelo, which means that if Crawford wanted to fight him, he would need to come up to 168 for that to happen. You can’t expect the king of the 168-lb division to drain down to 154 to face his needy, desperate B-side opponent.
Terence must do more to be all time #1
“I want Errol and then Jermell. Those are two history-making fights that I want,” said Crawford. “That’s something I’ve wanted for a long time, and for that to come to fruition, all I’ve got is Jermell now to solidify myself as the all-time great of all boxing.”
Nah, Crawford has got to do a heck of a lot more than to beat Jermell Charlo & Spence to be an “all time great” in the sport.
For this writer, this is the list of fighters that Crawford must beat to be viewed as an all-time great:
– Jermell Charlo
– Dmitry Bivol
– Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis
– David Benavidez
– Caleb Plant
– David Morrell Jr
– Artur Beterbiev
– Tim Tszyu
– Demetrius Andrade
– Janibek Alimkhanuly
– Keith Thurman
– Eimantas Stanionis
If Crawford can run through that entire twelve-fighter list without losing, then you can consider him the best of all time. Other than that, he’ll be just another one of the many fighters with an inflated resume, filled with junk opposition.
“Of course,” said Crawford when asked if he’ll say, ‘I’m done’ if he gets Jermell fight and wins.
“I wanted to let him know that I’m definitely coming for him because that’s what I said I was going to do,” said Crawford.
