By Brian Webber: Tim Bradley says Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford intentionally slowed things down, dragging out the fight with Errol Spence Jr for as long as possible to inflict as much punishment on him as possible to punish him and his fans.
Tim says that when Crawford chose to turn it up in the ninth, he stopped Spence.
Bradley states that Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) could have stopped Spence (28-1, 22 KOs) in the third round last Saturday night, as it would have been easy for him to do that, but he fought slowly to beat him up for as long as possible until the referee Harvey Dock was forced to step in to halt the fight in the ninth round.
Tim is just guessing because he’s a big fan of Crawford, almost like a cheerleader, and he has no clue what was on his mind early last Saturday night in the Spence fight.
As much as Bradley wants to build Crawford into a comic book Super Hero, the reality is he was afraid to finish the job early because Spence was still dangerous, especially for a fighter that had been dropped previously by Egidijus Kavaliauskas.
Did Crawford take it easy on Spence?
“Crawford took it pretty easy on him. He took his time. He wanted to punish Spence. That’s what he wanted to do. He wanted to punish his [Spence] fans,” said Tim Bradley to Fighthype about his belief that Terence Crawford purposefully slowed down his game so that he could inflict as much punishment as possible on Errol Spence.
Was Crawford taking it easy on Spence? No, it didn’t look at all like he took it easy on him, but if there was any slowing down from Terence, it was in the eighth round after he’d dropped him a couple of times in the previous round.
“All the stuff that everybody talked about him in the past that he was running from Spence. He took that out on Spence,” Bradley continued.
“He took his time because he probably could have ended this fight in the second or third round. He could have ended this match quickly, but he was like, ‘Nah, I’m going to keep softening him up, I’m going to keep bruising him up, and I’m going to show everybody that I’m the complete package, that I’m the best fighter in the world.'”
Crawford fought in the same identical way he always does. If you watch his last four fights, he fought in the same slow, methodical way as he did against Spence.
Crawford isn’t an Aaron Pryor type of fighter that overwhelms his opponents with punches. He’s a counter-puncher with low work, and that’s not going to change at 36 and beyond. He is what he is.
“When he turned it up when he decided to turn it up, it was over, but he could have turned it up in the third round, and he could have got him up out of there,” said Bradley.
“It’s all about the mindset, being able to make adjustments and having the skillset to back it up, and living the life of a fighter. That’s what Crawford does 24/7. That way, when you get in tough fights like this, it’s nothing for you,” said Bradley.
