Terence Crawford: record, next fight and profile →
By Andreas Hale - They keep trying to tell us that boxing is dead but the sweet science just isn’t listening. And if the announcement that Terence Crawford will move up to a very crowded and competitive welterweight division tells us anything, it’s that we have a plethora of intriguing fights ahead of us. Hope...
American boxer Terence Crawford, who has reigned in the lightweight and super lightweight divisions, was given the biggest honor on Thursday night from the World Boxing Organization (WBO), who named him as their "Fighter of the Year" at the close of the 30th Annual Convention that took place this week on a Caribbean cruise, which had a special visit to Havana, Cuba.
The WBO announced Thursday through its Twitter account that it has made Terence Crawford the mandatory challenger for WBO welterweight champion Jeff Horn. The sanctioning organization also announced that representatives for Crawford and Horn must schedule their fight for within 90 days after Horn’s optional defense December 13 in Brisbane, Australia. Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc. is Crawford’s promoter and Horn’s co-promoter, thus the deal should be relatively easy to complete.
There is still no word on what Manny Pacquiao plans to do in the future, at least when it comes to his boxing career. He briefly retired last April, after dominating Timothy Bradley in their trilogy fight. He came back last November, in winning the WBO welterweight title by defeating Jessie Vargas.
NEW YORK – Keith Thurman respects everything Terence Crawford has accomplished within the lightweight and junior welterweight divisions. To fight him, however, the unbeaten WBA/WBC welterweight champion claims Crawford must first become “relevant” within the 147-pound division. Crawford, the undisputed 140-pound champion, could move up to welterweight and perhaps secure a shot at WBO 147-pound champion Jeff Horn.
The next name on Jeff Horn's hit list might not be a household name. But Horn's trainer Glenn Rushton is adamant England's Gary Corcoran is the ideal tune-up for a blockbuster WBO welterweight world title defence early next year. Horn could not confirm details of his next fight after receiving The Don Award, as the athlete to have most inspired Australia, on Thursday night for July's upset win over Filipino great Manny Pacquiao.
A lot can happen in just a couple of months. At the last update, Andre Ward was coming off his best win in years, Roman Gonzalez was coming off a controversial first defeat. They stood atop the list with longtime bantamweight titlist Shinsuke Yamanaka crashing the top ten on the eve of his defense against Luis Nery. Since then, Ward has retired, Gonzalez was knocked out for the first clear loss of his career, and Yamanaka was stopped in his first defeat only for Nery to test positive for PEDs after the fight.
WBO, WBA, WBC junior welterweight champion Terence Crawford (32-0, 23 KOs) is heading up to the welterweight division. And as a result his world titles will become vacant. In August, Crawford knocked out Julius Indongo to unify the entire division by bringing together the WBO, WBA, IBF, WBC titles. Crawford has already vacated his IBF belt. And he fully intends to head up to 147-pounds.
The Boxing Writers Association of America will be listing on a bi-monthly basis its top-10 pound-for-pound fighters in the world. Terence Crawford tops our first officially voted-on list of boxing’s pound-for-pound best, which is selected by BWAA members from respected news outlets and is broken down based on a descending points system, with a first-place vote receiving 10 points, a second-place vote receiving nine points and so on. Ties go to the fighter with the highest submitted ranking, then the one with the most votes at that ranking.
WBC lightweight champion Mikey Garcia (37-0, 33 KOs) is still looking for the biggest opportunity possible in the next few months. In July, Garcia jumped up to the junior welterweight division and dominated four division champion Adrien Broner over twelve rounds at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.