Let’s face it. This was nothing new from Terence Crawford.
The 35-year-old from Omaha, Nebraska had won 39 fights. He’d knocked out 30 opponents. And he’d earned or defended titles in 17 straight appearances on the championship level.
So the idea of seeing him methodically break down a foe across a series of rounds—nine, in this case—wasn’t exactly unprecedented.
But it was special.
This was Errol Spence Jr., a three-belt title claimant at welterweight who’d not come close to losing himself in 28 fights across a pro career stretching back to a quarterfinal run in the 2012 Olympics.
And incredibly, if anything, the chasm was wider. Against a fighter who’d arrived to the weekend ranked fourth on The Ring’s final pre-fight pound-for-pound list. And outside of a competitive first round in which Spence was effectively aggressive and scored well to the body, it was never close.
And it made Crawford, already one of just nine men to earn undisputed status in any weight class since the onset of the four-belt era, the first to do it at two weights—following a previous run at 140.
The match began leaning decidedly in Crawford’s direction in the second round, when Spence went to the floor for the first time in his career after being hit by an overhand left followed by a straight right.
He rose immediately and didn’t appear in serious trouble, but it was an early indication that Crawford, in spite of disadvantages in height and reach and (probably, but not officially) actual in-ring weight, was the man whose power shots were going to have the most impact on the result.
The gap grew subtly with each three-minute increment as Crawford provided an answer to everything Spence and his outspoken (at least during fight week) corner team could come up with, consistently winning exchanges and offsetting any of his foe’s advances with precise and decisive replies.
Bernstein and broadcast colleague Mauro Ranallo said Crawford landed 58 percent of his power shots—anything not labeled as a jab—against Spence, which is an accuracy rate typically reserved for hotshot young prospects fighting no-hope journeymen, not champions fighting other champions.
The end finally and mercifully arrived with 28 seconds remaining in Round 9, when referee Harvey Dock rescued Spence as he reeled across the ring and into the ropes after another Crawford rally.
All three judges had it 79-70 in Crawford’s favor at the time of the stoppage, with two scorers giving the winner rounds two through eight while a third saw Spence the winner in only Round 3.
“I’m an overachiever,” Crawford said. “I made everybody a believer. It means everything because of who I took the belts from. Tonight I believe I showed how great I am.”
