Following Terence Crawford’s masterclass against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez on Saturday night, and indeed his destruction of Errol Spence two years prior, a question has emerged: how did more people not see it coming? Crawford-Spence was supposed to be a 50-50; Crawford was an underdog against Canelo. Crawford, even as he has headlined pound-for-pound lists and knocked out every opponent at welterweight, has faced questions about his resume. The depth of his talent and skill is now evident to all, but only after a long career. 

Respected trainer and analyst Stephen “Breadman” Edwards was a believer from early on. So much so, in fact, that when asked by BoxingScene if anything in the Crawford-Canelo fight surprised him, he said, “No. I knew Crawford was the goods. I knew he was special…I wasn’t surprised at all. I thought he might go for the knockout a little more, but I understand why he didn’t.”

“I thought both guys performed really well. Crawford’s a little too agile for Canelo. His ability to hit Canelo from a distance Canelo can’t hit him at – Crawford has a 74 or 75-inch reach, which is huge for somebody his height. He moves a little bit too good for Canelo. I saw the trouble that Canelo had with Lara and Trout, which was one of the reasons I was confident Crawford would win this fight. And he was in his twenties back then. Although I don’t think he’s in his prime anymore, I think he’s a better fighter now than he was back then. But he performed well. He didn’t turn around and tuck his tail. He was trying to adjust, he was throwing the lead right hand, he was throwing body shots. He tried his best. He may have won four or five rounds. But Crawford was clearly the superior fighter, and boxing needed that.”

Another of Edwards’ unpopular opinions going in was that the puncher in the fight – the boxer who could take the opponent’s punches better than vice versa – was in question. On its face, this seemed ridiculous. Canelo was the bigger man, and had a legendary chin to boot. But in practice, Crawford’s shots indeed seemed to bother Canelo at least as much as Canelo’s bothered him.

“I didn’t see [Canelo] visibly hurt, but I think some of the punches got to him,” Edwards said. “It’s not like a wobble, or an outward show of pain, but an inner discomfort. Crawford has a way of hitting you with shock shots. Shots that you’re not really braced for, and those are difficult punches to deal with. I don’t know if he’s the hardest puncher around, but he’s one of the best punchers around. He snaps a shot at unsuspecting moments, and it really shocks the opponent. He hit Canelo with a couple subtle body shots that Canelo wasn’t really braced for, and I think they bothered him. He hit him with a straight left hand when Canelo was loading up on a punch, and Crawford just extended his arm. Boom! It snapped Canelo’s head all the way back. That jars your back, that jars your spine. If you’ve ever had any back troubles, you know you can’t even walk when your back is hurting. He hits you with these sudden shots that you just don’t have a chance to brace for, and I think they got to [Canelo] a little bit. Not so much hurt him, but wearing him out and discouraging him a little bit.”

That left hand reminded Edwards of a punch Crawford threw several years ago: the shot that hurt Kell Brook and began the sequence leading to the stoppage. Once again, Edwards was higher on the punch than most.

“Kell Brook was rumbling that night. Kell Brook looked good in that fight. He might not have been in his exact prime, but he wasn’t shot. He was still very capable. He was hitting Bud and scoring points and doing really, really well,” Edwards recalled.

“Bud threw a punch, man – it’s one of the greatest punches I’ve ever seen in my life! It was like a half-hook, half-jab, and it was a counter shot as Brook was throwing a right hand. He beat the right hand and snapped his whole head around, bro! Right in the middle of Brook throwing a one-two, which is his best combination. I don’t like to argue, so if other people don’t think as highly of the punch, I’m like, ‘Okay. I know what I saw. That was one of the most ridiculous punches you ever want to see.’ And Brook was rolling! He got off to a good start. He was hitting Crawford. I was watching that fight very intently, because I love Kell Brook’s straight punches and sound fundamentals, and I heard he had trained really hard for that fight. So I was really interested in that fight. And when he started out like that, I said, ‘Aw, shit, Kell Brook is here to fight. Crawford got a fight on his hands tonight.’ Crawford just stayed calm, and boom! No load, no tell. You didn’t even see the punch coming.”

Edwards’ description brought to mind yet another moment of Crawford genius: the right hand that dropped Errol Spence for the second time in their fight. In the seventh round, Crawford sagged to the ropes, playing possum. Spence launched an overhand left that appeared to land solidly. But as it arced along its path, Crawford had fired a quicker, more violent right uppercut that dropped Spence. The effect in real time was bewildering. Crawford’s hand moved quicker than my eye could perceive, and was partially obscured by Spence’s lunging body. Spence seemed to enjoy a moment of success, only to skid onto his backside afterwards as if deposited on the canvas by an invisible, malevolent entity.

Edwards thinks Crawford’s subtlety is key to why he has taken longer than the other great fighters of his generation to be appreciated fully.

“I’ve had a lot of people around me like, ‘Why do you think so highly of him? His resume is not this, his resume is not that. I just don’t see certain things.’ I saw them, without the proof of them, because he didn’t get the opportunity to fight certain fights…I got criticism for saying not only would he beat Canelo, but I was getting criticism for having him No. 1 pound-for-pound. And I was just like, ‘I think he might be a little better than Inoue. Just a little. And I know it’s a tough sell. Usyk is beating giants, and Inoue is probably a little bit more destructive and athletic than Crawford. But it’s something about Crawford. He can just do things that don’t always show up on paper or the eye test. He’s more subtle than them.

“I really believe in Terence Crawford and his skills and his ability. He’s a rare fighter and an all-time-great fighter and he could’ve been great in any era.”

So, what can Edwards see that others can’t, what does Crawford look like through his eyes? The question spurs Edwards into his finest analysis yet, words dancing like Crawford in the ring.

“It’s just a sublime skillset. It’s adjustable. It’s adaptable. It’s like an impromptu skillset. He has the orthodox-southpaw thing going. He extends his hands, he doesn’t load up on his punches, he’ll just snap a shot at the last second to hit you. He’s constantly touching the body. He’s constantly feinting, he’s constantly probing, he’s constantly looking for a rhythm to be successful. He doesn’t throw 80, 90 punches a round, but he’s mentally messing with you. If he goes away from you, you can’t run up on him. If you take a breather, he’ll start pestering you and touching you with shots. They don’t look like much because he’s not loading up on them – and the next thing you know, the [opponent] is depleted. Those same shots that don’t look like much, he’s snapping them, he’s stabbing you with them, then he starts to put a little more power on them as the fight goes along. I’m looking at a guy that’s downloading data. He might be some kind of savant. Sometimes a person is gifted in a way where they can’t explain it, they just display it.

“I’m looking at a guy with not only superior IQ, but superior instincts,” Edwards continued. “He knows when to do things, he knows when not to do them. He’s not looked at as a speedster, but he out-speeds everybody. He’s not looked at as a puncher, but he’s the puncher in most of his fights. He doesn’t get credit for his conditioning – he’s never tired. Nobody can bully him and push him around. We question his chin after the Gamboa fight, he takes a punch just fine to me. You know I’m a big Ray Leonard fan. Ray Leonard and Roy Jones, and even Floyd and Pernell, they jump out in the eyeball test. You can see their God-given talent a little bit easier than you can see Bud’s.

“Roy is a one-punch knockout artist with both hands. Faster than anybody you ever want to see, twitchier than anybody you ever want to see. Has the highest Olympic pedigree. Probably the greatest athlete to ever box. Ray Leonard has this charisma and showmanship nobody’s had. If he’s not the fastest guy that ever lived, then Roy Jones is. He’s in the argument. Beautiful combination puncher, vicious mean streak, you can see all Ray Leonard’s stuff. Floyd Mayweather, these twitchy reflexes. You can’t hit him with a combination. Precise athleticism. Pernell Whitaker has this radar where you can’t hit him with a good shot. He’s like Jell-O, he’s like a bottle of water that just pours on you. He’s shapeless. You can see his gifts. Bud is probably not the boxer Floyd is, he doesn’t have the speed and power Roy Jones has, he doesn’t have the speed and charisma Ray Leonard does, and he doesn’t have the defensive twitchiness that Pernell does. But he might be just as good as all of them!”

Edwards returned to the Canelo fight, citing a sneaky right hand Crawford landed that the commentators and announcers didn’t see.

“Canelo tried to bull-rush him, it was early in the fight. Crawford has these long, whipping levers for arms and he whipped Canelo on the side of the head with a right hook. I was like, ‘Damn! Nobody saw that punch! But I saw it.’ I was like, ‘This kid is very accurate. He’s the total package, and he stays within himself. He never, ever gets too high or too low during a fight. No fighter is perfect, but he’s flawless.’”