Roach: Crawford is No.1 pound-for-pound fighter

Boxingnews24.com

By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach says light welterweight champion Terence “Bud” Crawford is his No1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world right now. Roach doesn’t see anyone better than the 29-year-old unbeaten Crawford (32-0, 23 KOs), who briefly unified the 140-lb. division last month when he defeated IBF light welterweight champion Julius Indongo by a 3rd round knockout on August 19 at the Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Not long after that fight, Crawford vacated his IBF title after the International Boxing Federation ordered him to fight his IBF mandatory challenger Sergei Lipinetc.

Roach doesn’t have a vote in the selection process for the top pound-for-pound fighters in boxing. That’s decided by Ring Magazine, who have Crawford rated No.3, behind Andre Ward at No.1 and middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin at No.2. Roach’s opinion on Crawford is just his own personal preference and nothing more than that.

“I think [Terence] Crawford is the best fighter, pound-for-pound, in the world today,”He can box, he can move for 12 rounds, he can punch, he hurts everybody. In his last win he fought the African fighter who’s a really tough guy — I saw him win the title in Moscow…I thought that ‘if Crawford takes this guy lightly he might be surprised.’ And he went right after him, Crawford. He went right after him and made him look ordinary, with a body shot,” said Roach.

It’s hard to pick Crawford as the No1 fighter pound for pound in boxing, because he’s not been fighting good opposition with major talent. Crawford is fighting decent guys like Julius Indongo, John Molina Jr., Felix Diaz, Viktor Postol, Hank Lundy, Thomas Dulorme, Raymundo Beltran, Yuriorkis Gamboa and Ricky Burns. Those guys aren’t in the same class as the top welterweights in boxing like Errol Spence Jr., Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia. Until Crawford moves up in weight and takes on those guy, you can’t say he deserves the top spot in the pound for pound ranking.

Crawford beat one of Roach’s fighters in Viktor Postol last year in defeating him by a 12 round unanimous decision on July 23. It was a satisfactory performance by Crawford, but he moved around the ring a lot, and was doing too much showboating instead of fighting. Crawford did a lot of the same things in his win over John Molina last December in moving a lot.

In Crawford’s fight last May, he mostly boxed Felix Diaz before finally stopping him in the 10th. It wasn’t really exciting to watch. Crawford was a lot better in his last fight against Indongo. That was an easy fight for Crawford, considering that Indongo was loading up on wild left hands and leaving himself open in the process for counter shots to the head and body. Crawford ended up stopping Indongo with a body shot in the 3rd round. Crawford took advantage of Indongo throwing a badly telegraphed left hand by hitting him with a right to the body that knocked the air out of him. The fight was then stopped.

“So I think he might be the best fighter pound-for-pound in the world right now but can he beat Triple G and those guys? Size wise, different weight classes — don’t think that’s going to happen,” said Roach.

I don’t really understand why Roach brought up Golovkin. Of course, Crawford can’t hang with Golovkin. That would-be size mismatch. Crawford would get taken part by Golovkin or by any of the other top middleweights. Pound for pound is different. They judge fighters by how they do in their own respective divisions, but they also factor in the level of competition the guy has faced. Crawford is fighting in a division that I incredibly weak right now at 140. Moreover, Crawford rehydrates into the 160 regions. He’s a VERY big light welterweight.

When you’re talking about Crawford rehydrating 20 pounds from 140 to 160, it’s hard to know whether his success at light welterweight is due to his talent or the fact that he’s so heavy for the division. Crawford should have moved up to the welterweight division a long time ago so he could fight guys his own size. You can appreciate why Crawford wouldn’t like to move up to 147. He has a good thing going for him at 140. he fights guys that are lighter than him that don’t have much in the way of talent or boxing ability.

On the flipside, if Crawford moves up to 147, he would have to fight guys like Thurman, Spence, Porter and Danny Garcia. Those guys could potentially beat Crawford, because he would no longer be a guy that gets over by being heavier than his opponent. So, staying at 140 has been a good thing for Crawford, because he hasn’t had to deal with much in the way of risks like he would if he moved up to 147 and had to fight Spence straightaway.
Roach wants to match his fighter Manny Pacquiao with Crawford soon.

“Well that’s a big fight but I also want him to fight Manny Pacquiao,” said Roach about Crawford fighting Spence. “Do we fight at 40 or do we fight at 47? I’d like to see Manny go down to 40 for that fight because Manny has much more firepower at 40 than he does at 47. But it’s been a long time and Manny is 38 years old and he’s like 22 and competition wise it’s getting to the point where it’s very difficult to be in with the younger generations.”

Roach needs to let Manny decide whether he wants to fight Crawford or not. It’s not a good deal if Roach is trying to make decisions for Pacquiao. Just based on Pacquiao’s actions, he doesn’t seem interested in fighting Crawford, because if he was, he would have made the fight a long time ago. It’s better for Roach to talk about guys that Pacquiao would be interested in fighting rather than on guys that he’s shown zero interest in. One fighter that Pacquiao had spoken of wanting to fight is Amir Khan. That’s who Roach and promoter Bob Arum should be focusing on after Pacquiao gets done with his rematch with Jeff Horn next year. Khan is supposed to be fighting at the end of the year sometime. If Khan doesn’t get knocked out or beaten by a decision, then Arum should work to put together a fight between him and Pacquiao.

“And not to say Manny can’t do it but timing,” said Roach. “They kind of waited for us to get old, or older — and I’d rather see Manny fight the rematch with Horn and go on from there. And it could be [Crawford] somewhere down the line, it could be any of those guys. But I do have my concerns ‘because I do have to protect my fighter. I still think it’s my job to put him in the right fights and I would hate to see any of my fighters get hurt. And so, I’m very careful about who we choose but usually it’s a good choice,” said Roach.

Pacquiao might retire after the Horn fight, especially if he loses that one. Roach should concentrate on just one fight at a time for Pacquiao instead of acting like he’s going to be around for a little while longer. I think Pacquiao will retire after the Horn fight unless he wipes him out, which I don’t think he will.