photo courtesy of the New York Times
Terence Crawford has cemented himself as a welterweight juggernaut in the boxing world. On Saturday night, July 29, Crawford became the champion of his weight class by beating Errol Spence in their match at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The brilliant fight left Crawford with an impressive band of belts, the World Boxing Organization welterweight title belt, the World Boxing Council belt, and two others from the International Boxing Federation and the World Boxing Association.
The fight was entertaining, according to CBS Sports Boxing. Crawford threw haymakers, dominating the ring during the match. Spence went down twice in the seventh round, but the match ended in the ninth round when Crawford landed so many heavy hits in a row that the referee stopped the fight 2 minutes and 32 seconds into the round.
The judges found he landed twice as many significant punches as Spence did throughout the match. His win made history, causing him to be the first welterweight to hold titles from all four major sanctioning Boxing bodies. Spence is known as one of the best fighters in his expertise, but Crawford beat him to become the first male fighter to “achieve undisputed status in two weight divisions in the modern four-belt era.”
After the match, Crawford said, “It was a good stoppage. I was on the verge of coming back with some hard shots. Everybody knows I’m a great finisher. The ref did what he’s supposed to do to protect the fighter.”
Crawford acknowledged that winning the belt from Spence was a big honor for him. “It means everything because of who I took the belts from,” Crawford expressed. “They talked bad about me. They said I wasn’t good enough and I couldn’t beat these welterweights. I just kept my head to the sky and kept praying to God that I would get the opportunity to show the world how great Terence Crawford was. Tonight, I believe I showed how great I am.”
“Like I said before, I only dreamed of being a world champion. I’m an overachiever. Nobody believed in me when I was coming up, but I made everybody a believer. I want to thank Spence and his team because, without him, none of this would have been possible.”
The fights between Crawford and Spence aren’t over yet. As a result of their contract’s bilateral rematch clause, Spence will be able to challenge Crawford to a rematch.