Training like Floyd Mayweather, Terence Crawford has shot at winning Fighter of the Year again
Were it not for a thumb injury Canelo Alvarez suffered in his win over Liam Smith in September, odds are pretty good that Terence Crawford would have no shot at becoming the 2016 Fighter of the Year.
Crawford, the Boxing Writers Association of America’s 2014 Fighter of the Year, is 2-0 in 2016 and among a group of qualified candidates that includes Carl Frampton, Vasyl Lomachenko and Andre Ward.
But Crawford was probably behind the others, even after his dominant win over Viktor Postol in their super lightweight title unification bout in Las Vegas in July.
Crawford needed an extra bout to make his case, but HBO didn’t have a place for him on its schedule. HBO’s plan was for Alvarez, the super welterweight champion, to fight a tune-up sort of fight this weekend to set the stage for an eventual September 2017 bout against Gennady Golovkin.
That left Crawford on the outside, sidelined until 2017. No one at HBO has explained why its boxing budget was so limited in the second half of 2016.
The downside of that from Crawford’s perspective would have been the likelihood he’d have lost out on Fighter of the Year.
But when Alvarez injured his thumb and a planned Golovkin-Danny Jacobs bout was pushed back to 2017, money came free and HBO green-lighted Crawford for one final bout in 2016.
And that will give him a final chance to showcase himself when he meets John Molina Jr. on Saturday in front of what is expected to be a raucous hometown crowd in Omaha, Neb.
If Crawford makes enough of an impression against Molina, a gritty but slow fighter who seems tailor-made for him, and he wins the Fighter of the Year, it will give him an argument as the leading boxer in the post-Mayweather Era.
Crawford would have two Fighter of the Year awards in a three-year span and would have a shot at it again in 2017 with a mega-match vs. Manny Pacquiao looming.
Crawford said a win over Molina would cap what he believes is his best year yet.
“I unified the division and I fought a real tough guy in [Hank] Lundy and got him out of there, which no one had done,” he said. “I’m about to fight for a third time and I think you can see I’ve improved and that I’m a more complete fighter than I ever was.”
Crawford’s trainer, Brian McIntyre, agreed with that last part. Crawford’s always been a tremendously gifted boxer, but he’s now seeing the game at a level that he previously wasn’t. His knowledge of tactics and strategy has made him a much better fighter who is able to put his talents to their most efficient use.
“His boxing IQ has definitely elevated,” McIntyre said. “He sees things a little more. He’s a bit more patient, but at the same time, he fights with urgency. And he understands all aspects of the game. He’s never out of shape. He gets how important it is and he’s always in the gym working and so he’s always in shape. He doesn’t get a fight and then come to camp and have to spend a lot of time getting weight off.
“So he is always able to learn and get better and that’s taken him to another level.”
In that regard, Crawford is much like Mayweather, the dominant fighter of his era. Mayweather was renowned for always being in shape. He fought the largest part of his career at welterweight or above, but he never weighed more than in the 150s at any point in his life, whether or not he had a fight.
Mayweather was also a technician who spent hours working on the finest details of his game. Crawford is much the same way.
“I don’t know Mayweather personally and so I can’t say what he did in the gym, but I know I’ve never seen him out of shape,” McIntyre said. “Terence is the same. He wants to be the best. He has made a commitment to always being ready, always trying to find things to improve and always asking to fight the very best.
“He understands that this is his job. It’s his craft. This is how he feeds his family and provides for his community. He takes all of that seriously and he knows what he has to do.”
And though a fight with Pacquiao is looming – assuming Pacquiao and promoter Bob Arum sign off on it – the one thing you can almost be certain of is that Crawford won’t be caught looking ahead.
He never has and he never will, he says.
“The only thing I can control when I get into that ring is how well prepared I am, and if you’re not ready, it’s going to show,” Crawford said. “It doesn’t make sense to take this guy more seriously than that guy. Give everything you have for every fight and then you know you’re prepared for anything that might happen.”
One of the things that might happen in that case is being named Fighter of the Year again.
At least once.
