Lewis Urges Jeff Horn To Attack Crawford Early, Expose Flaws
The man that is widely regarded as the greatest boxing trainer in the history of Australia, Hall of Famer Johnny Lewis, is urging WBO welterweight champion Jeff Horn (18-0-1, 12 KOs) to have the mindset of a challenger and attack Terence Crawford (32-0, 23 KOs) early.
Horn is scheduled to make a mandatory defense against Crawford on April 14th at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.
But the oddsmakers have Horn listed as a massive underdog - despite the contest being Crawford's first in the welterweight division.
Horn came on the world scene in 2017, when he won an upset twelve round unanimous decision over Manny Pacquiao to capture the WBO title before a crowd of over 51,000 at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.
Lewis has a lot of respect for the ability of Crawford and views him as one of the best in the business, which is why he says Horn must bring the fight in every round instead of sitting back and waiting to counter Crawford's attacks.
“Jeff can’t sit back and look for opportunities because Crawford is a sharpshooter and he will pick him off,’’ Lewis said to Courier Mail.
“I’m not going to say that Crawford is the best fighter in the world but he’s certainly one of them along with the Ukrainian kid (Vasyl Lomachenko). He is very fast, has good balance and he can hurt you with either hand.
“But we’ve seen some great fighters brought down a peg in recent times such as Gennady Golovkin and this is Jeff Horn’s chance to expose flaws in Crawford’s makeup.Jeff is a tremendous pressure fighter and he can whack but he has to fight like a hungry challenger from the opening bell to stop this bloke.’’
Lewis, who took fighters like Jeff Fenech and Kostya Tszyu to world titles, is very curious to find out if Crawford has the chin to take Horn's punches.
Crawford started his career at lightweight, where he captured his first world title, and last year he unified the entire junior welterweight division when he united the WBC, WBO, IBF, WBA titles with a knockout of Julius Indongo.
“But we don’t know what’s going to happen if Jeff lands a big punch on Crawford’s chin,’’ Lewis said. "Crawford can dish it out but we don’t know how well he can take it.
“What we do know is that Jeff is as tough as iron and he will fight until there’s absolutely nothing left in the tank.’’
