If you take a look at the top of any pound-for-pound list, just about everyone there has delivered a highlight recently. Oleksandr Usyk beat Tyson Fury for the second time in December. Naoya Inoue scored his 10th straight knockout in January. Dmitry Bivol exacted revenge against Artur Beterbiev just a couple weeks ago. Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez scored two sensational stoppages in the second half of 2024.

Then there’s Terence Crawford. He hasn’t been in the ring for seven months and won’t return back to the ring for at least a few more, but he’s up there with the best fighters in the world just the same. In fact, Crawford hasn't fought more than once in a calendar year since 2019 (though it should be noted that before 2019, he consistently fought two or three times a year).

You might think this would have negatively impacted his performances. Conventional boxing wisdom says fighters need to fight regularly and somewhat frequently to stay sharp. When a boxer looks rusty in the ring in their first outing in some time, inactivity is the first thing to blame. Media members and broadcasters often pine for the days when fighters were more active. We speak frequently of tune-up fights, soft touches, ring rust and how no kind of training can simulate a fight under the bright lights.

Yet Crawford seems beyond all that.

Prior to his fight with Shawn Porter in 2021, Crawford was inactive for 371 days. He knocked Porter down twice with savage counterpunches in the 11th round and became the first fighter to stop him. Crawford was off for 385 days after that, then delivered a highlight-reel KO of David Avanesyan.

Seven months later, Crawford fought his only apparent equal in Errol Spence Jnr, and inarguably a far better fighter than Avanesyan. The boxing world had been clamoring for the fight for years because of what figured to be a dead-even matchup and a pleasing clash of styles. Crawford beat Spence up so badly – in what might be the best performance so far this century – that Spence has not fought since.

Somehow, some way, Crawford is immune to the typical symptoms of inactivity. So high is Crawford’s confidence in his ability that he has no plans to take a tune-up fight ahead of a rumored showdown with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, even as Alvarez takes what is essentially a stay-busy fight against super middleweight titleholder (but seemingly hopeless underdog) William Scull in May.

Maybe it’s Crawford’s supernatural skill that allows him to avoid the downsides of inactivity – the best athletes tend to break rules that mere mortals must follow. Or maybe his trademark slow start is his way of shaking off the rust; he figures out his opponent in those first four rounds while also reacclimating to the ring. (That said, after four rounds against Spence, Crawford had already knocked him down and doled out enough punishment for a doctor to examine Spence in his corner.)

Maybe it’s the rigor with which Crawford trains. In his past few fights, he has joined forces with Victor Conte and trained at altitude. Conte, the once-disgraced founder of the sports nutrition organization BALCO (he pled guilty to establishing a steroid distribution system and served prison time), now runs the supplement and training company SNAC, which works with several top boxers, including Crawford.

Before Crawford’s fight with Israil Madrimov, BoxingScene’s Lance Pugmire wrote about the partnership, and Conte told him that “Terence may be the most scientifically prepared boxer in the history of the sport.” This may help explain how Crawford remains elite at 37 years old, but also how he can shake off ring rust so quickly.

Staying out of the ring has one obvious and significant benefit: fewer punches to the head. Though only those in the gym with Crawford can know how much damage he takes in sparring, he has likely been hit with fewer hurtful punches over the past five years than any other top fighter.

This week, Canelo attended a press conference ahead of his fight with Scull. Canelo has unfailingly fought in May and September in previous years, and 2025 will be no different. Meanwhile, Crawford will be training, strategizing, and biding his time.

Owen Lewis is a former intern at Defector media and writes and edits for BoxingScene. His beats are tennis, boxing, books, travel and anything else that satisfies his meager attention span. He is on Bluesky.