Terence Crawford scored a one-punch, fake-looking knockout in a professional wrestling appearance on Friday night ahead of his title challenge 14 days from now against WBA Junior middleweight champion Israil Madrimov on August 3rd at the BMO Stadium in Los Angeles.
In the wrestling event last Friday night, the 36-year-old Crawford climbed into the ring and scored a knockout with a phantom punch. It looked real for a newcomer to professional wrestling.
Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) is going to have to do a lot more than that if he wants to dethrone Madrimov two weeks from now in His Excellency Turki Alalshikh’s Riyadh Season event, live DAZN and ESPN+ PPV.
Terence is coming off another 13-month layoff, which is the norm for him to challenge Madrimov. Crawford’s bad habits of taking extended vacations after his fights for the last four years could finally come back to haunt him on August 3rd because you can’t treat boxing like a part-time job.
You can get away with it for a while if you cherry-pick opposition, which you can argue is how Crawford has gotten away with it. Sooner or later, however, the inactivity eventually robs fighters of their skills to the point where even cherry-picking doesn’t work.
Crawford’s Opponent Selection in the last four years:
– Errol Spence: 2023
– David Avanesyan: 2022
– Shawn Porter: 2021
– Kell Brook: 2020
– Egidijus Kavaliauskas: December 2019
– Amir Khan: April 2019
The cherry-picking force is strong with this one.
It will be interesting to see how His Excellency reacts if Crawford and heavyweight Jared Anderson lose their fights on the August 3rd card. Jared is fighting Martin Bakole on the undercard. Anderson (17-0, 15 KOs) and Crawford are two fighters Turki is high on.
Will His Excellency give up on Crawford if he loses to Madrimov or continue to support him until the bitter end, sticking him in with Canelo Alvarez in the first quarter of 2025, hoping fans have short memories?
For sporting value, he should allow Madrimov to face Canelo in a ‘Little GGG’ vs. Alvarez vintage blast from the past type of fight. It would be a bad look for Crawford to be still given a title shot against undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo in 2025 if he’s coming off a defeat against Madrimov on August 3rd.
If Crawford loses to Madrimov, he should do the right thing and fight him again or return to 147 to face Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis. Ideally, Madrimov should be the one who is given a fight against Canelo instead of Crawford under that scenario.
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