Terence Crawford is now a four-weight world champion,
The pound-for-pound great further added to his legacy this past weekend when he dethroned the now former WBA super-welterweight champion Israil Madrimov. ‘Bud’ was making his debut in the division and was pushed all the way to the final bell but maintained his undefeated record via unanimous decision with scores of 116-112, 115-113, 115-113.
According to Madrimov’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, those scores were ‘disrespectful’ to his man and he felt the fight was much closer and could have gone either way.
Talking to Sean Zittel, Hall of Fame boxer Tim Bradley agreed with the judges and scored the fight 116-112 in favour of the American.
“When Crawford put those combinations together he was hurting Madrimov man, he was hurting him and he was hurting him badly. For me Madrimov was just too inconsistent.
I scored the fight 116-112. I didn’t have it as close as everybody else did, 115-113 I didn’t have.
Crawford won in the jab department, Madrimov is a guy that likes to jab, Crawford took that away from him. Madrimov just depended on the left hand, which he landed well in spots, but it was single shots. Crawford was landing his jab consistently, controlling the action, dictating the pace and landing combinations and again, taking risks. He took risks on the back end of the fight to secure the victory, whereas you had the champion who should have taken more risks to defend his title in my opinion. But he didn’t and played if safe.”
Unlike some pundits, Bradley was impressed with Crawford’s performance and branded him a ‘generational talent’.
“Crawford is a wizard in the ring, he’s a once in a generation talent and it’s going to be tough to beat him. Crawford is a bad man, everyone is praising Madrimov but we forgetting about who won, who won was Crawford, Crawford won the fight, hands down. Madrimov got his behind whooped, he got beat, period.”
During the card Saudi Arabia’s Turki Alalshikh announced an offer had been made to Canelo Alvarez to face Crawford next, however, just 48 hours later, he rescinded that offer and claimed he is ‘no longer interested’ in making the fight.
