By Brian Webber: Tim Bradley is convinced that when the time comes, Terence Crawford will destroy undisputed junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo even sooner than he did Errol Spence Jr.
Bradley says Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) already has the fight planned out in his head about how it’s going to go when/if he fights Jermell (35-1-1, 19 KOs) and sees it as a cakewalk.
The problem is that with Crawford getting old at 36 and only fighting once a year, he might be too ancient to do anything against any top fighter in a couple of years, least of all with a talent like Jermell.
For the time being, Charlo has bigger fish to fry against the ‘Face of Boxing’ Canelo Alvarez on September 30th. If Jermell knocks Canelo off his throne at 168, he’s going to stay put in that weight class.
Crawford will need to move up
Why would Jermell waste time draining himself down to 154? The money would be better for Jermell at 168, and he’s going to stay there if he beats Canelo, which means Crawford will never fight him because he’ll be too many weight classes apart.
Jermell is operating in a distant galaxy than Crawford, and the Omaha, Nebraska native lacks the big enough spacecraft to get to where he’s at, fighting at 168.
Crawford isn’t going to be able to make the jump to 168 because his frame is too small, and again, he doesn’t fight often enough. We probably won’t see Crawford back in the ring until next year if his rematch with Spence doesn’t happen.
“Look, Crawford is already two, three, four steps ahead of everybody. You know Crawford has already envisioned himself fighting Charlo,” said Tim Bradley to Fighthype about his view that Terence Crawford will make easy work of undisputed junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo when or if they ever fight before they both retire.
Can Crawford destroy Jermell?
“He knows how to beat Charlo already. His team knows how to beat Charlo already,” said Bradley. “That’s the difference. I get you live in the present tense, but you’re always planning toward the future,” Bradley continued.
Bradley must be realistic about Crawford’s size limitations and the glacially slow pace at which he moves his career. Is Crawford big enough to bulk up to 168 to face Jermell once he captures the titles from Canelo?
Even if Crawford could, he would have to work his way to a title hott against Jermell by beating David Benavidez & David Morrell Jr. That’ obviously not going to happen. Those guys would punch holes through Crawford and send him back to 154 off the back of a bad knockout loss.
“Crawford, he’s a chess player, a master chess player. He knows what he’s going to do, Charlo, and if Charlo gets in the ring with him, it’s going to be destruction. The same [as what happened to Spence], if not sooner,” said Bradley.
“He’ll probably stop Charlo a lot sooner. But again, people are going to be like, ‘Oh, the power of Charlo.’ What happens when he [Crawford] avoids the one-two down the middle from Charlo?
“What happens when he takes that away from you? What else is Charlo going to have? Nothing. Crawford can step inside the pocket, he can do it all, and that’s the thing, that’s the difference, and he can hit hard. He hits hard, dude, and he’s physically strong,” said Bradley.
Can Crawford do to a non-weight-drained Jermell what he did to the zombie-esque, half-dead from weight loss Spence? This writer doesn’t think so. Jermell Charlo would finish what Egidijus Kavaliauskas stated.
Charlo won’t be pushed around
“When I was watching him push back Errol Spence like he was like a rag doll, just pushing him back like, ‘Nah, you’re not pushing me back.’ Bro, I was like, ‘My gosh.’ They are talking about strength,” said Bradley.
Of course, Crawford was pushing Spence around the ring like a “rag doll” because he was like a corpse inside the ring, weight drained to the point where he couldn’t put up a fight and way too weak to mount any kind of offense.
“He’s literally bullying the bully, pushing him back,” said Bradley. “‘Nah, you ain’t pushing me back. Oh, you felt a little resistance.’ He was like. ‘Feel this.’ He did what he wanted to do inside that ring, and he’ll do the same thing with Charlo, and it’s no shade or disrespect to Charlo.
“It’s just there are levels to this, man. There are levels to this game, bro, as you can see, and everybody saw it. It’s levels to this damn game, and there’s Crawford, and there’s Inoue, and then there’s everybody else. That’s it. Crawford, Inoue, special.
“These are special guys, once in a generational talent. Like these guys will be talked about for years, I see that in both these guys,” said Bradley.
