Comments Thread For: Terence Crawford Dominates John Molina; Stops Him in 8th Round

[TheUptownKid]

I watched the fight and was entertained, Crawford is elite status no matter the list. He just fights, matchmakers match make, but this is fight #3 of the yr from him and he has performed well in each showing. I'd like PAC but will bob arum he's maxed out Omaha and tc isn't as much of a star elsewhere, but I would be entertained

[UFC_Boxing]

Crawford is an excellent fighter but people need to stop acting like he's untouchable. GGG gets hit with one jab and his defense "sucks," but Crawford can eat clean straight lefts from the likes of Beltran and he's untouchable.

People need to understand, these are mismatches. Not just levels, but style wise. Crawford is the most athletic fighter in the game, and one of the fastest pound for pound, so you put him in with the slowest guys you can find, like Postol and Molina, and it becomes a joke. He is not untouchable but fans want to see actual logical fights, that can be competitive. Max Kellerman is on crack it's not just Errol Spence or bust. Thurman-Crawford is a 60-40 fight in Thurman's favor in my opinion.

But you have to match him with athletic guys, otherwise it's just a mismatch. Even guys like GGG, if he were at 140, he's not super fast, but he has athleticism. Postol and Molina are two of the least athletic boxers ranked in any weight class. So Bob Arum as usual knows how to build a star with great matchmaking, but that's what it is. We saw Terence Crawford literally being outboxed by a smaller man, Gamboa, just a couple years ago, so how are we supposed to believe Crawford is an untouchable Pernell Whitaker type when he's been outboxed in the past, and by someone with a much shorter reach? The only reason Crawford won that fight was size and power.

Pacquiao IS an older fighter but that would at least be interesting. Pacquiao still has some athleticism. At the end of the day, Crawford is an excellent fighter just like other excellent athletic fighters such as Thurman, but until he actually fights those guys, these fights don't mean anything. I already saw him outboxed and hurt by Gamboa. Running circles around super slow guys like Molina and Postol tells me nothing. It just builds hype for casual fans but it doesn't mean anything. Crawford has elite athleticism like almost all top fighters do, and until he faces other fighters his size with elite athleticism, he's not really facing top fighters. Postol and Molina are not top fighters.

So Crawford asks when will fans give him credit? When he actually fights top guys in their primes, like champions are supposed to. He complains how he won't get credit for Pacquiao either because Pacquiao is an old man. Then ****ing fight a top guy who isn't an old man, genius! This Mayweather-type diva attitude is ridiculous. Go do what Charlo and JRoc did. There are plenty of names. Mikey Garcia, Thurman, Spence. Even Broner or Shawn Porter are athletic, would be decent fights. So stop complaining that people won't give you credit for winning mismatches, and go earn that credit by beating actual top guys.

What the HECK, so now Crawford opponents lack athleticism??? LMFAO get a life you hater. Postol was super athletic, Gamboa was, Beltran was, Burns was, most of Crawford opponents were athletic wtf. That's the worst excuse i have everu heard from someone trying to discredit Crawford. I've heard people complain about size, about a suspect chin, about running, about not finishing opponents. But athleticism...wow.

Should Crawford and Thurman fight, Thurman is gooing to get whooped pretty bad actually. It's a 90-10 fight for Crawford, with Thurman having a puncher chance.

And you name Mickey Garcia as a potential opponent for Crawford, i mean, why the hell would M. Garcia accept to fight Crawford? He know he loose it, and he need to go up in weight to fight a bigger man.

Other people you named are 147 lbs, might actually happen later, but it's those guy who should be on their knee and beg Crawford to give them at shot at him. Clearly no1 is begging Crawford now, i think nobody want to fight him from 135-147.

[Boxing Logic]

Your post is too extreme. Crawford MADE Postol look slow. Gamboa was IN the fight but ultimately lost because he was too small. Your matchups are good.

Nah man Postol has always been slow. Matthysse was outboxing him but Matthysse has no defense and Postol has a huge reach, caught him coming in. Even then, Postol has limited power (12 KOs in 29 fights lol), and didn't actually KO Matthysse. What he did was reinjure Matthysse's eye that has been problematic ever since Danny Garcia laced his eye in their fight, and then Matthysse quit. He has had awful luck since the Garcia fight.

Look I get it. People didn't understand why Crawford hadn't fought Postol yet, so they talked smack, and now Crawford fans want to use that like it's Ali-Foreman all over again, and no one thought Crawford could win, and Postol was so amazing, and he proved all the doubters wrong.

It wasn't like that at all. I will tell you exactly what happened: Crawford was at a career high after the Gamboa fight. He was getting regular HBO dates, and we all were eager to see this pound-for-pound talent in great fights now against people his size.

But then what happened?

Crawford went literally 2 ****ing years facing nothing but overmatched C-level guys. Four fights. Four HBO dates. Four total mismatches. Beltran, Dulorme, Jean, Lundy.

So after boxing fans were starved by Team Crawford for two ****ing years of any good matchups, we naturally began to wonder, will Crawford ever face someone decent again? ANYONE! And then the name Postol got floated out there, and after FOUR ****ING TUNEUPS IN A ROW we all said Postol? Please! Yes! Anything but more tuneups! At least he's Crawford's size for the first time in Crawford's entire career on HBO!

Next to all the tuneups Crawford was fighting, Postol sounded pretty good.

That's what happened. Does it mean we thought Postol as a top fighter? No. It was just two things. We were sick of Crawford fighting tuneups, so now that we were finally getting the first at least legitimate matchup in two years, we overrated it because we were starved for a good matchup. It's like if you have nothing to drink for three days, even stale milk will taste amazing. And the other thing was that little Gamboa had hurt Crawford, and Postol "stopped" Matthysse even though it was bull****, so we thought hey, if Gamboa could hurt him, maybe he's chinny, and maybe Postol can hurt him, so the matchup at least has intrigue on paper even if Crawford is a huge favorite.

That's all it was. And Crawford has showed since then that he's not going to get caught in the first place by slow guys, and since then he hasn't gotten hurt at all regardless so maybe even if he does get hit, maybe it turns out that little Gamboa is still more powerful than some of these bigger guys who don't have the explosiveness Gamboa does.

Anyway, Crawford's reach advantage was so key in beating Gamboa, that fighting someone with a big reach advantage over him in Postol was intriguing. But as many predicted, Crawford was so, so much faster that Postol's reach advantage didn't factor in at all. And Crawford had been hurt against a smaller guy, so Postol's size was intriguing, even though Crawford is just as big overall. But at least Crawford was FINALLY fighting someone his size, so that was an intriguing first. And finally, the tuneup train had gone on so long with Crawford, and boxing's schedule overall in 2016 was so awful especially the first half, that we all ate up any actual legitimate matchup between top 5 guys in a division, even if this was a stylistic mismatch in a weak division (because at this point, pretty much all the best 140 pounders besides Crawford are fighting at 147, or, in Mikey Garcia's case, at 135).

So I wish Crawford fans would not make the Postol win something it wasn't. I also see this anti-eastern european undertone sometimes where it's like the opposite of the Broner-Maidana thing. People hated Floyd so much, they were happy to see Broner lose, even though Broner isn't Floyd. Well this it the opposite. I see some people who hate GGG and Kovalev so much, and view them as Eastern Europeans, and since those people can't see them lose (well, outside of bad judging), like people who don't like Floyd couldn't see the actual Floyd lose, they tried to make it like "Postol is also european, so he's part of the same group as GGG and Kovalev, so it counts the same."

None of that is legitimate. Postol is not GGG or Kovalev. He's not even Beterbiev. I don't even think he's as good as Shabrannsky, or Gvosdyk. He does not have athleticism like those guys do.

So let me just say this. I am not a Crawford hater. I think in terms of athletic gifts he and Lomachenko are the closest to a RJJ of this generation. Here is my one big issue. 5 out of his last 6 fights have been complete tuneups in terms of rankings, and 6 of his last 6 fights have been complete tuneups when you factor in styles and athleticism. I want to see him fight other athletic guys.

I mean it's the same thing as with Floyd later in his career. They were able to hype him as being totally unhittable because they kept matching him with slow guys like Guerrero, Maidana, and that whole style. They kept him away from guys like Spaddy and perhaps even Khan because they knew defense is still related to reaction time, and everyone is human. The human eye can only react so quickly sometimes no matter how skilled you are. No one can avoid every shot from guys that fast. But, they wanted to market Floyd as superhuman defensively, so they picked opponents that would help that narrative.

This is the same exact situation. Floyd and Crawford are two of the best defensive fighters out there, no doubt, but they can still be hit, and still be forced into real fights, entertaining, competitive matchups, if they actually fight other top opponents with athleticism of their own. And as a boxing fan, that's what I want to see. Postol is a very nice name for Crawford to have on his resumé, but let's get real and talk about actual tests in the ring. Guys like Postol simply have not tested Crawford and they won't. Gamboa however did test Crawford until Crawford turned southpaw and used his longer reach to pick Gamboa coming in with check hooks, Gamboa and Crawford gave fans a great fight as opposed to the one-sided snoozers we have gotten ever since against less athletic opponents.

So we know Crawford can be in entertaining, competitive fights. That's what I want to see. Thurman for example is way faster than Postol and Molina, slower than Crawford but very athletic with decent hand speed. Was it Teddy Atlas who called Thurman the most athletic guy in boxing? I don't agree with that but he's definitely athletic, is the point. Thurman has good speed, he's just as big as Crawford, he actually has footwork unlike Postol etc, Thurman has shown a decent chin so far, and Thurman has more power than Crawford. And Crawford has a one inch reach advantage but nothing huge.

So you don't even need to talk about Spence. Just do the Thurman-Garcia winner, for example. Gamboa hurt Crawford, so we know Thurman can. Collazo hurt Thurman, so we know Crawford can. Gamboa hit Crawford... can Thurman? If so, great fight. If not, then Crawford proves something. Proving you can avoid faster-than-average punches like Thurman's, coming from some angles, in combination, from someone with footwork, means a lot more than proving you can outjuke a flat footed, slow guy like Postol.

I just want to see better opposition, period. If Thurman and every other athletic guy ducks Crawford, like people have ducked GGG, then I will give even more respect to Crawford. But right now it seems like he's the one who has been picking cherries 5 of the last 6 fights, who is happy to fight subpar opposition until a big money fight comes along. I want to see him really pursue these top guys. He is in his prime. Let's go already. Molina, Dierry Jean, etc are not competitive matchups.

[rob_pro boxer]

It's Honestly somewhat of a 50/50 I believe...TC is a BIG 140lbs and everyone knows he re hydrates 15lbs minimum. at 147 against Porter,Garcia,Thurman,Spence is where he needs to go. I would not like to see him fight a Burnt out of prime Pacman and TBH I think he beats FM by decision.

[Boxing Logic]

Good post! I didn't even watch the fight because I refuse to watch bad matchmaking and TERRIBLE mismatches. I think PAc with his crazy hand speed and odd punching angles could beat Crawford. And he's used to coming forward so he has no problem fighting guys who dance a lot. The only issue would be who the Ref. is in the fight. He gets a judge like Bayless who breaks up fighters when the other one even flinches at his favorite fighter. I mean go watch that TERRIBLE Pac/Maidana II fight!!! Maidana hit Floyd with a BEAUTIFUL flush punch and Bayless jumped in the middle of the two and started holding and caressing Floyd like he was his baby...Maidana couldn't even followup a BEAUTIFUL LEGAL, LANDED punch.

Bayless was horrible in that fight. I don't know if these refs are bought off, or if, because Byrd did the same thing for Ward vs Kovalev, it's just ingrained in certain black guys growing up that they're supposed to cheat to help other black guys in situations like that. I'm not saying it's a unique black thing or that most black people do it at all, I mean hell I wouldn't know, I'm just saying you do notice that trend recurring in certain situations with certain refs, so you wonder if maybe they're an exception, but a true exception where they are favoring race, even if most black people would never do that. But whatever the reason, they are definitely biased.

[Boxing Logic]

He is a top guy in his division. The fact that all the guys you mention for him him, are a division above, proves that.

He is the best guy at 140. I never said he wasn't. I'm just saying he should maybe fight ONE athletic A fighter his size before people anoint him the best fighter in the world. He definitely didn't look invincible in the Gamboa fight.

[Boxing Logic]

Great post. I actually like Crawford and I feel that almost nobody beats him in that division, but he needs more scalps.In this era, it's hard for amazing talents like TC or Loma to get solid wins in their resume. And people still overrate Postol (who's only good win was Matthysse) or ignore the fact that Gamboa was much smaller and that was the same **** that GGG did. I wasn't even watching that Molina fight, just not interested in matchups like this. Crawford deserves better opponents

Agreed agreed.

character limit character limit.

[Boxing Logic]

What the HECK, so now Crawford opponents lack athleticism??? LMFAO get a life you hater. Postol was super athletic, Gamboa was, Beltran was, Burns was, most of Crawford opponents were athletic wtf. That's the worst excuse i have everu heard from someone trying to discredit Crawford. I've heard people complain about size, about a suspect chin, about running, about not finishing opponents. But athleticism...wow.

Should Crawford and Thurman fight, Thurman is gooing to get whooped pretty bad actually. It's a 90-10 fight for Crawford, with Thurman having a puncher chance.

And you name Mickey Garcia as a potential opponent for Crawford, i mean, why the hell would M. Garcia accept to fight Crawford? He know he loose it, and he need to go up in weight to fight a bigger man.

Other people you named are 147 lbs, might actually happen later, but it's those guy who should be on their knee and beg Crawford to give them at shot at him. Clearly no1 is begging Crawford now, i think nobody want to fight him from 135-147.

You're dumb. How was Postol athletic? He was long. Beltran has the athleticism of a top fighter now? With his 7 losses? GTFO casual fan. The only guy you had right was Gamboa and I believe he would have won a wide decision or knocked out Crawford in that fight if he was the same fighter, but Crawford's size. Gamboa is definitely athletic but he's naturally 3-4 weight classes smaller than Crawford, so doesn't it raise questions in your mind that someone that much smaller than Crawford could cause so many problems for him? GGG gets criticized for losing one round to Brook, who is naturally one weight class smaller than GGG, and outweighed him on fight night. Crawford was multiple divisions bigger than Gamboa, and lost the first FOUR rounds if I recall, AND got staggered, but you're not going to criticize him?

Just stop with the double standards man. Anyway, Crawford's opponents have either been C+ level guys, or B-level guys like Postol with no hand speed. There are a lot of prime guys out there Crawford could fight to prove he's as good as he's looked against these ready-made guys. I hope he does, but the last two years his opponents have, overall, been trash.

[nacho daddy]

He handled business. Garcia vs Crawford lets make it happen

wow never thought he would beat Molina hahahah what a joke 8 rds to do it?? I see you pick the weakest WW for crawford

[nacho daddy]

That was a beatdown over a VERY overmatched opponent.

it was a disgrace and Crawford his trainer manager and promoter should be arrested for assault. this is bad for boxing