A bigger, smaller, and older-looking Terence Crawford showed off his form today, sparring retired Andre Ward in the final 2 1/2 weeks of preparation for what is expected to be the toughest fight of his career by a longshot on August 3rd against WBA Junior middleweight Champion Israil Madrimov.
Most agree that this will be a difficult fight for Crawford because he will get hit with power shots by Madrimov, which he’s never experienced before during his 16-year career. Crawford has only fought four times since 2020, beating these guys:
Errol Spence
David Avanesyan
Shawn Porter
Kell Brook
Those are tune-up-level fighters, and none of them are relevant to Crawford’s fight against Madrimov on August 3rd.
The year out of the ring since Crawford’s win over Errol Spence seems to have aged him because he doesn’t look physically like the same guy he was 12 months ago.
In the sparring footage, Crawford held his lead hand far out before him, using it to prevent Ward from getting close. Eastern European fighters often use that style, so Madrimov will not have a problem figuring out how to overcome it.
Crawford must stand his ground to win this fight because he can’t win by jabbing and retreating all night, which he was doing in the sparring with Ward.
Training with 40-year-old, out-of-shape-looking former two-division world champion Ward is not the ideal way to prepare for Madrimov because they are two different fighters. Madrimov is young at 29, shorter than Ward, trim, a much bigger puncher, and has an Eastern European style.
Ward’s experience with an older version of Sergiy Kovalev won’t help Crawford prepare for Madrimov because he doesn’t fight like him.
No one knows what to expect from Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs). He looked older from being out of the ring for a year, and he’s bulked up to get to 154 to face the huge puncher Madrimov (10-0-1, 7 KOs).
“I get some rounds with one of the GOATs. Two GOATS,” said Terence Crawford on social media, talking about his sparring with an out-of-shape-looking 40-year-old Andre Ward in preparing for the 29-year-old phenom Israil Madrimov on August 3rd.
Crawford hasn’t beaten anyone other than a faded Errol Spence Jr. for him to be considered one of the greatest of all time. Giving himself a self-label of GOAT is pretentious on his part because he only has the car crash-wrecked Spence on his 16-year resume. The rest of the names are guys Kell Brook, Amir Khan, and Shawn Porter. They were all old by the time Crawford fought them.
Ward wasn’t a GOAT because he only had wins over an old Kovalev, and both of those were controversial. He lost the first fight in the eyes of many fans, and in the second, he was given a questionable stoppage win after appearing to hit Kovalev with repeated low blows.
I watched the fight live and counted three consecutive low blows, which the referee, Tony Weeks, missed. Ward retired without fighting Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev, which likely wouldn’t have ended badly for him if he’d fought them.
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