The welterweight division, post-Terence Crawford: Who rises to the top?

It is only when you look at what is left of the welterweight division Terence Crawford has opted to leave behind that you start to get a better understanding of why he wanted to leave it behind. 

While not lacking talent exactly, the 147-pound division is certainly short on stars, even potential ones, and therefore Crawford, at 36, couldn’t afford to waste time in a division already conquered. He had to instead chase opponents rather than wait for them to emerge, and this he did on Aug. 3, when dethroning Israil Madrimov, the WBA’s junior middleweight titleholder, in Los Angeles. 

Since then, Crawford has of course been linked with other fights and other opponents, but most of them are north of welterweight, with some campaigning at middleweight or even super middleweight. Meanwhile, on Monday, the World Boxing Organization announced that Crawford had vacated his WBO welterweight title in order to remain at junior middleweight or, perhaps, venture on further. Either way, whether Crawford elects to stay at junior middleweight or ends up a super middleweight for one night, it is clear now that the job has been done at welterweight. 

At welterweight, where he campaigned between 2018 and 2023, Crawford achieved plenty, too. After stopping Jeff Horn in nine rounds to take the WBO belt, the Nebraskan would go on on to defend that belt seven times, beating along the way the following: Jose Benavidez Jr, Amir Khan, Egidijus Kavaliauskas, Kell Brook, Shawn Porter, David Avanesyan and, finally, Errol Spence Jr., from whom Crawford also took the WBC and IBF versions of the welterweight crown. Better yet, he didn’t just beat these men in defense of his title – he stopped every one of them, with only Benavidez and Porter making it as far as the 10th round.

That fact alone goes some way toward highlighting Crawford’s dominance at 147 pounds. It also explains, to some extent, why 13 months passed between his beating Spence and challenging Madrimov at a new weight. In an ideal world, yes, Crawford would have been busier post-Spence, and have the next big rival already lined up. Yet this was unfortunately never the case for Crawford at welterweight. Instead, welterweight ended up being a division he had outgrown, meaning there was now a chasm between the best – that is, Crawford – and the chasing pack. That, for someone who has always shown a propensity to move through the weights and test himself, was always going to be the trigger for him to up and leave. 

And so it proved. 

Now, in light of Crawford’s departure, the welterweight division is left to reshuffle and reassemble and in time find a new No. 1. This process started on Monday, in fact. That was the day the WBO not only announced Crawford’s decision to vacate but also confirmed that Brian Norman Jr., its interim titlist, would now be elevated to full titleholder with immediate effect. 

That’s good news for Norman, who became interim belt holder by virtue of a 10th-round knockout of Giovanni Santillan on May 18 – and it is good news for the welterweight division as a whole, too. If nothing else, it suggests that Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) has had the decency to not leave anyone hanging or hedge his bets going forward. Now, as a result, his old division can start to rebuild, and hopefully – albeit too late for Crawford – the next welterweight star will slowly emerge. 

Those to fill the void:

Jaron Ennis (32-0, 29 KOs)

Perhaps the only welterweight with the star power to keep Crawford at 147 pounds, Ennis has emerged ultimately too late in the day for the departing champion. A fine talent, no doubt, Ennis hasn’t lost in 32 fights. Yet only this year did he become full IBF welterweight titleholder, having last year held the interim belt. He is still new to this level, in other words. He has beaten solid opponents – men like Sergey Lipinets, Karen Chukhadzhian, Romain Villa and David Avanesyan, whom Ennis stopped in July. But to mention him in the same breath as Crawford requires a belief in Ennis’ ability to step up that is not yet grounded in any sort of reality or evidence. It is a shame, but it is also the truth.

Brian Norman Jr. (26-0, 20 KOs)

Delighted to have been installed as the new WBO titleholder, Norman is, at age 23, one of the bright young things in the welterweight division. Four years Ennis’ junior, the Georgian has plenty of time on his side and will now have to navigate his reign as WBO belt holder with a mix of both ambition and caution. He will, due to his inexperience, carry a target on his back. Yet Norman showed against Giovani Santillan in May that he is more than capable of rising to the occasion and winning fights deemed difficult. Santillan, after all, was a man unbeaten in 32 fights at the time of facing Norman, but this meant nothing to Norman as he dropped the Californian twice in Round 10 before stopping him. 

Mario Barrios (29-2, 18 KOs)

Barrios, a 29-year-old from Texas, only moved up to welterweight after being stopped in 11 rounds by Gervonta Davis in 2021. He then suffered another loss, this time against Keith Thurman, before finding his feet in the 147-pound division and stringing together three decent wins. This run saw Barrios beat Cuba’s Yordenis Ugas last year to win the WBC interim title and also Fabian Maidana, against whom Barrios defended that belt in May. He is improving – that much is clear – yet it would seem, based on past results, that we already know Barrios’ ceiling. 

Eimantas Stanionis (15-0, 9 KOs)

Although only 15-0, Stanionis is 29 and has a fair amount of amateur experience on which to fall back. He also currently holds the WBA “regular” belt, which he picked up by outpointing Radzhab Butaev via split decision in 2022. That was the belt Lithuania’s Stanionis then successfully defended in May, thanks to another decision – this time against Gabriel Maestre, and this time a unanimous one. His big fight, of course, was meant to have happened against Vergil Ortiz Jr. last year, only for it to get canceled not once, not twice, but a total of three times, seemingly cursed. Now Stanionis needs a fight of similar standing to truly establish himself as a force in the welterweight division.