To some, the resume of Terence Crawford was completely laughable. A win over Julius Indongo allowed Crawford to become an undisputed champion at 140 pounds. A victory over Jeff Horn netted him a world title in his third division. Grabbing a win over Ricky Burns was also salient, as it began his run as a full-fledged champion.
Although they were notable victories in Crawford’s book, to at least a certain segment of the boxing world, it was nothing to brag about.
Fans eyed Crawford’s resume up and down. After doing so, some believed that he simply wasn’t capable of beating Errol Spence Jr. With the two officially squaring off this past July, Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) didn’t say a word as his resume was constantly chastised.
Hard-fought bouts against the likes of Jose Benavidez Jr., Shawn Porter, and Egidijus Kavaliauskas were viewed as warning signs. If Crawford could struggle against those fighters, how could he deal with an elite operator like Spence?
That exact question was answered in the most violent of ways. Crawford toyed with his man on July 29th, dropping him on three separate occasions before eventually putting him out of his misery in the ninth round.
Crawford is now putting his hands to his ears. Silence is all he can hear from those who had so much to say. All along, the 35-year-old never believed for a single second that his resume wasn’t up to par. Now, after making it look incredibly easy, Crawford hopes that his critics all learned their lesson.
“If you look at my fight with Errol Spence and how easy I defeated Errol Spence compared to all these guys (on my résumé) that they were calling bums - that should tell them something right there,” said Crawford on Weighing In with Travis Hartman. “The guys you were calling bums put up a better fight than your favorite fighter.”