Terence Crawford fought like he had something to prove. And in the end, that resulted in the Omaha fighter doing just that. Crawford walked away from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas with history on his side, sweeping the welterweight titles with a finish of Errol Spence Jr.
Terence Crawford Makes History, Finishes Errol Spence Jr.
Not only did Terence Crawford become the undisputed welterweight boxing champion of the world Saturday night. He did so in an impressive fashion.
There was no scoring fiasco or other issue, as Crawford stopped Errol Spence Jr. in front of thousands inside the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The main card aired live on Showtime pay-per-view.
“It means everything because of who I took the belts from,” Crawford said. “They talked bad about me. They said I wasn’t good enough and I couldn’t beat these welterweights. I just kept my head to the sky and kept praying to God that I would get the opportunity to show the world how great Terence Crawford is.
“(Saturday), I believe I showed how great I am.”
Crawford caught Spence early, becoming the first to drop him. He would eventually hand him his first loss and become the reigning WBA, WBC, IBF and WBC champion in the process, improving to 40-0 overall.
He also became the first male fighter to hold all the titles in multiple weight classes, having done so at 140 pounds before.
Crawford, who is known for fighting from both the southpaw and orthodox stances, fought primarily as a southpaw and scored his first knockdown in round two with a powerful right cross that caught Spence off balance and sent him down for the first time in his career.
“We practice that,” Crawford said. “Normally in camp we do a flick and jab. But we knew that wasn’t going to work with Errol Spence because he’s durable, he’s strong. So we had to practice a strong firm jab. The jab hit him and stopped him in his tracks.
“Errol Spence is a tremendous talent and he’s got a great jab. We were worried about the jab coming in because that’s how he sets up all of his shots. Our main focus was the jab. You take away his best attribute. The rest is history.”
Terence Crawford Stops Errol Spence In Ninth
Errol Spence Gives Credit Where It Is Due
Spence didn’t hold any ill will towards Crawford after being dealt his first pro loss.
“He was just better,” Spence said. “He was using the jab. My timing was a little bit off. He was just the better man.”
Spence came out strong before getting knocked down by Crawford in the fight. The bout was eventually called off in the ninth round at the 2:32 mark.
After the loss, Spence was already looking towards getting a rematch on the docket.
“We gotta do it again,” Spence said. “I’m going to be a lot better. It’ll be a lot closer. It’ll probably be in December and the end of the year. I say we gotta do it again.”
