A mic’d up Shakur Stevenson was furious at hearing boos from the crowd during the Terence Crawford vs. Israil Madrimov fight last Saturday night. The booing started in the second round due to the dull, tactical chess match between Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) and Madrimov (10-1-1, 7 KOs).
WBC lightweight champion Shakur, who is no stranger to boos, was in the audience at the BMO Stadium in Los Angeles and was upset at hearing the fans booing during the main event fight between former three-division world champion Crawford and WBA junior middleweight champion Madrimov.
Shakur is close friends with Crawford, who fights similarly to him with a safety-first style, and he didn’t like hearing him getting booed nonstop.
Crawford is an older fighter with a fighting style suited to the bygone Mayweather generation. That style doesn’t work with today’s fans, who demand entertainment inside and outside of the ring. Crawford, a dinosaur in the 21st century, provides none of that.
Taking it Personally
For some reason, Shakur took the booing personally, repeatedly saying, “Shut up,” to fans who were unhappy at paying to see a boring fight between Crawford and Madrimov. Fans had spent their hard-earned money on tickets and expensive parking to watch the event.
They wanted to get value for their money and time spent on travel, so they naturally expressed their feelings to the 36-year-old Crawford and Madrimov.
By the time the main event fight came on, fans were tired because they’d had to sit through a long concert from 51-year-old Eminem, and they wanted to see an exciting fight. Putting a rap concert in a boxing event was not a good idea because many fans aren’t into that kind of music.
A Return to Form
People not familiar with Crawford assumed that they would see the same brawling style that he showed in his previous fight a year ago against Errol Spence in July 2023, but that’s not how he usually fights.
Crawford has always been a boxer, and the only reason he deviated from that approach is that Spence was a physical wreck in that match. Spence looked half-stunned even before the fight started.
Last weekend, Crawford reverted back to the fighter he’d always been, a dull boxer-puncher with a fighting style similar to Shakur’s.
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