Terrance Crawford vs. Julius Indongo this Saturday

Boxingnews24.com

By Chris Williams: Unbeaten light welterweight champions Terence Crawford (31-0, 22 KOs) and Julius Indongo (22-0, 11 KOs) will be facing each other this Saturday night in August 19 in a unification clash on ESPN at the Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Crawford will be fighting in his home state of Nebraska, and there are expected to be a large crowd of his fans that will be turning up to watch him square off with the 34-year-old Indongo. The winner of the Crawford-Indongo fight will be the unified light welterweight champion at 140, and they’ll hold all 4 of the MAJOR titles in the weight class. I’m talking about the IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO. Indongo currently holds the IBF and WBA belts. Crawford has the WBC and WBO straps.

This is Crawford’s big chance to unify the light welterweight division by beating Indongo, and winning over some news boxing fans. I hope for Crawford’s sake that he at least tries to fight in a fan –friendly manner against Indongo on Saturday night, as running around the ring, taunting him wont impress fans.

Crawford built up a lead in his last 2 fights against Felix Diaz and Victor Postol and he taunted both. It looked petty. Instead of taunting, Crawford should try and knock them out as fast as possible. That’s the key to winning more boxing fans. You don’t win them over by building up a lead and sticking your tongue out at them while running around the ring.

Indongo, a 2012 Olympian from Windhoek, Namibia, has looked great in defeating title holders Ricky Burns and Eduard Troyanovsky in his last two fights since 2016. The southpaw Indongo stopped Troyanovsky in the 1st round on December 3 last year in Moscow, Russia. I don’t think anyone expected Indondo to stop Troyanovsky the way he did. A lot of people in the boxing world expected Troyanovsky to successfully defend his IBF title against Indongo. It was a big shocker when Indongo knocked out the Russian fighter. Indongo’s recently one-sided 12 round unanimous decision win over Ricky Burns on April 22 was less of a surprise. Indongo was seen as the favorite in that fight due to his big punching power, boxing skills and southpaw stance.

The start time for the Crawford vs. Indongo fight is at 10:00 p.m. ET. The fight will be televised on ESPN and ESPN Deportes. Additionally, it will be streamed live on the ESPN app. The undercard has some notable name fighters, but unfortunately, they’re not matched against quality opponents in competitive fights. It’s pretty much mismatches unfortunately.

The Crawford-Indongo undercard fights are as follows:

– Oleksandr Gvozdyk vs. Craig Baker: This fight will be televised on ESPN along with the Crawford vs. Indongo fight. The unbeaten Gvozdyk (13-0, 11 KOs) will have his NABF light heavyweight title against little known Baker (17-1, 13 KOs). Gvozdyk is ranked #2 by the World Boxing Council. He wants a title shot against WBC champion Adonis Stevenson, but that could take years to happen. If Stevenson gets past #1 WBC mandatory Eleider Alvarez, I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t make his next mandatory defense for 3 to 4 years from now. If Gvozdyk is good with waiting that long, then more power to him. But he’d be better off going in the direction of WBA light heavyweight champion Andre Ward. Gvozdyk is rankted #3 by the WBA. Gvozdyk’s opponent for Saturday, Craig Baker, was knocked out by Edwin Rodriguez in 3 rounds on May 23, 2015. That’s the only quality fighter that Baker has fought during his 9-year pro career. Gvozdyk should win this fight, but it won’t tell us anything. To learn how good Gvozdyk is, he needs to fight the likes of Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol. If Gvozdyk can beat those two fighters, then it means he’s a got some talent.

– Mike Reed vs. Robert Frankel

– Nicholas Walters vs. Arturo Santos Reyes Walters (26-1-1, 21 KOs), a former WBA Super World featherweight champion will be trying to get back to winning after his loss to Vasyl Lomachenko last year in November. That was a very bad fight for Walters. He looked mentally beaten by Lomachenko. In his fight before that, Walters struggled to a 10 round draw against Jason Sosa in December 2015. Walters didn’t look good in that fight either. Walters has an easy mark on Saturday in Reyes (19-8, 5 KOs). The 31-year-old Walters should beat Reyes without any problems. If Walters loses this fight too, then Top Rank might need to think about whether it’s worth it to keep him under contract.

– Dillian Whyte vs. Malcolm Tann: Whyte (20-1, 15 KOs) will be trying to build his profile for a hoped-for title fight against WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder. Whyte’s promoter Eddie Hearn still believes a fight between Whyte and Wilder is possible even though Deontay has already rejected his initial offer of $3 million. If Hearn can come back with a better offer, we might be seeing Whyte and Wilder fight. In the meantime, Hearn has Whyte fighting the 6’6” Tann (24-5, 13 KOs) to get him accustomed to fighting taller heavyweights. It’s probably not going to help Whyte defeat Wilder, because he’s a lot better fighter than the 38-year-old Tann. Wilder can do a lot more things than the journeyman Tann can do. But you can’t blame Hearn for at least trying to improve Whyte before he buys him a title shot against Wilder. Tann doesn’t have much to offer in terms of talent. He’s not a threat to Whyte. He’s a showcase opponent. Tann was knocked out in June by Sergey Kuzman by a 4th round knockout. For boxing fans that were following the sport 10 years ago, Tann was a notable prospect, who lost to Chris Arreola, Alexander Dimitrenko, Willie Chapman and Donomic Jenkins. He also beat Derek Bryant and Sedreck Fields. Tann stopped fighting for a 9-year period after his 5th round knockout loss to Dimitrenko on May 4, 2007. Tann subsequently made a comeback last year in defeating Nick Asberry. Unfortunately, Tann lost his last fight against Kuzmin. It’s unclear how much longer Tann will stick around the sport before he retires again.

– Bryant Jennings vs. Daniel Martz: Top Rank signed the 32-year-old Jennings (19-2, 10 KOs) recently, and they hope to salvage him and get him a world title shot against WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker after he wins a couple of fights. The idea is Jennings beats Martz (15-4-1, 12 Kos), and then one more heavyweight before he gets a title shot against Parker. Top Rank co-promotes Parker, so getting a title shot for Jennings will be a snap. It might not be a good fight, but oh well. It would be a lot better if Jennings had to earn a title shot rather than have it given to him by beating 2nd tier fighters, but this is boxing. It’s not like the NFL. You to earn a shot at Super Bowl. It’s boxing it’s more about which promoter you’re with. Jennings has a 2-fight losing streak going. He lost to Luis Ortiz and Wladimir Klitschko in his last 2 fights.

– Shakur Stevenson vs. David Michel Paz: 2016 U.S Olympian Stevenson recently signed with Top Rank. They’re going to slowly build the 20-year-old Stevenson up and eventually try and turn him into a world champion. Like with all Olympians, you never know what you’re going to get until they start facing quality opposition. Stevenson could become a world champion someday or he could wind up like a lot of former Olympians with him never panning out. It’s hard to tell. What’s noticeable is Stevenson’s lack of power. He’s going to need to find some power if he plans on staying at featherweight. Stevenson will be fighting David Michel Paz (4-3-1) in 6 round fight on the Crawford-Indongo card. This is a showcase fight for Stevenson. Showcase = mismatch.

– Mike Alvarado vs. Sidney Siqueira: 37-year-old former WBO light welterweight champion Mike Alvarado (37-4 25 KOs) will continue his slow climb back to the top when he faces 40-year-old journeyman Sidney Siqueira (26-12-1, 17 KOs) in a 10-round fight. The Argentinian Siqueira is coming into Saturday’s fight on a 4-fight losing streak. Siqueira’s last win was 3 years ago on December 13, 2014. That’s not good news for the boxing fans that see Alvarado fight Siqueira. If they’re expecting a competitive fight, they might be disappointed. Siqueira went the distance with unbeaten Jose Benavidez in losing a 10 round unanimous decision on December 12, 2015. In Siqueira’s last fight, he was beaten by Mike Reed by an 8 round unanimous decision. Alvarado has put together 3 straight wins since losing to Ruslan Provodnikov, Juan Manuel Marquez and Brandon Rios. Alvarado’s career was thought to be over after his loss to Rios on January 24, 2015. But surprisingly, Alvarado has won his last 3 fights in beating Saul Corral, Josh Torres and Mathew Strode. Alvarado is now fighting at welterweight. When he was at 140, he had the size advantage over his opposition. But now that he’s at 147, it’s difficult to imagine him making waves in that division, especially at his age.

There are 6 notable fighters of those 7 undercard fights, but unfortunately, they’re matched up in not competitive fights. Top Rank would have been better off cutting two-thirds of the undercard and used the money to get quality opponents for the likes of their name fighters Gvozdyk, Whyte and Jennings. Obviously, Top Rank is hoping to increase the popularity of these guys to build them up. What better way to build up fighters than to put them in showcase fights against opposition with absolutely no chance of beating them.

Crawford, 29, should win the fight. If he does, then it’s going to be interesting to see if he chooses to stay at 140 for another year or two to defend the titles against all comers or if he’ll seek out bigger and better things at 147. It’s thought that Crawford will move up in weight to the welterweight division to try and get a fight against the aging soon to be 39-year-old Manny Pacquiao. I would be surprised if that fight takes place. Pacquiao would likely need to take a pay cut to fight Crawford. He’s making good money fighting Jeff Horn. If Pacquiao can fight Horn another 2 to 3 times, he can feather his nest in retirement. Fighting Crawford is not a big money fight because it’s not PPV worthy, and there’s not a lot to gain in Pacquiao fighting on free television on ESPN against Crawford. It’s thought that if Crawford beats Indongo, he’ll move up to welterweight, where he’ll be able to fight guys like Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, Amir Khan, Andre Berto and Errol Spence. Wrong. Those guys likely will never fight Crawford, because they’re with different management. If Crawford moves up in weight, he’ll have Jeff Horn, maybe, and Jessie Vargas to fight. That’s about it. The rest of the guys will be fighters like Bradley Skeete, and Lucas Matthysse. Crawford is almost better off staying at 140 unless he can get Pacquiao and/or Horn to fight him at 147.

It would help Crawford’s case if he were to stand more stationary and not run around the ring so much. I can’t imagine Horn and Pacquiao will want to chase Crawford for 12 rounds. For his own good, Crawford needs to stand still and show Indongo that he can beat him without running. If Crawford looks stationary and vulnerable against Indongo, he might get some of the other Top Rank guys to fight him.

The promoters for the event are hoping for big ratings. The last Top Rank card headed by super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko vs. Miguel Marriaga didn’t bring in the huge ratings on ESPN that many had thought it would. It could be that it was disrupted by an old timers NFL banquet or perhaps the mainstream casual boxing fans aren’t too excited about watching 130 lb. fighters fight, especially when it’s perceived as a mismatch like the Lomachenko-Marriaga fight turned out to be.