By Chris Williams: Jermell Charlo believes that the rabbit punches that Terence Crawford hit Errol Spence with played a factor in his ninth round knockout win on July 29th.
Charlo wonders why the media isn’t mentioning the punches behind the head of Spence (28-1, 22 KOs) that Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) was landing in the fight that seemed to take something out of him.
Unfortunately for Spence, many referees don’t police rabbit punches for some reason, even though they’re far more dangerous than low blows.
It’s as if their priorities are mixed up, choosing to come down hard on fighters that land low blows while ignoring rabbit punches, which seems crazy.
Chris Williams saw some rabbit shots from Crawford, but interestingly, the referee didn’t step in to warn, dock points, or disqualify the Omaha, Nebraska native.
How would the fight play out if Crawford lost points for his rabbit shots on Spence? I guess we’ll never know because it’s too late now.
Boxing needs to have sensors placed on the back of fighters so that when fighters land rabbit punches, the referees are clued in that they need to give a warning, time out, and deduct points if it’s a constant thing.
The rabbit punching obviously wasn’t the main reason why Spence lost. It was more of a weight drain issue. He looked skeletal during the weigh-in the day before the fight, which was a sign that he’d taken off too much weight. It’s reported that Spence drained down from 190 to 147 during camp.
For any of you that have ever taken off that kind of weight, it’s a killer. In my senior year, I drained down from 190+ to 177 for a wrestling match against a guy I’d pinned in the first period in my freshman, sophomore & junior years.
After rehydrating, I had nothing left and lost. With Spence, he had it far worse, losing 40+ lbs, and that was too much weight to be fighting someone like Crawford.
“Errol is good. He’s living his life, he moving up in weight, and he wants to get that rematch,” said Jermell Charlo to Fight Hub TV bout Errol Spence Jr. wanting a rematch with Terence Crawford.
“He’s back hungry. He’s got some jet fuel in him now. I don’t think Errol should retire. I’m not annoyed because that’s not me because those people are saying it [that Spence should retire]; it could have been just people talking. It got love, it got pub, and people are rocking with it.
“No, Errol isn’t going to retire. He’s down for the fight. Errol had a bad night. It was nothing that made me be like, ‘Oh, Crawford’s something spectacular.’ He didn’t throw that many punches.
“I don’t know why none of you are talking about some of these behind-the-head shots and s*** that you didn’t mention. I saw a bunch of behind-the-head shots during that fight,” said Charlo.
