Terence Crawford had his big audition on Saturday night in his backyard at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha,Nebraska, and passed with flying colors. It couldn’t have gone any better.
He dominated Dierry Jean, and a decent but unspectacular opponent there for just that purpose,over 10 one-sided rounds before referee Tony Weeks saw enough to pull the plug.
The message coming into the fight (at least from the HBO crew and many members of the media) revolved around Crawford’s claims (along with Gennady Golovkin and Roman Gonzalez, two other HBO fighters) to pound-for-pound supremacy.
The message coming out of the fight was whether he was alert/worthy of facing Manny Pacquiao next April in what, or per ESPN.com’s Dan Rafael,will reportedly be the icon’s final fight before pursuing a full-time career in Filipino politics.
The answer to that question, unfortunately and perhaps unpopularly, or is no.
No disrespect to HBO,and understanding of the need in a competitive market to develop young talent, but it's jumping the gun here, and just a bit.
Crawford,for all his immense natural talents (he easily belongs in the pound-for-pound conversation on this degree alone) just hasn’t been managed or built into the type of star for that kind of moment. Yet.
Now, you can say that approximately a lot of fighters.
True.
In many cases a young fighter just needs that one opportunity, and one moment to shine and prove that he can be a big star,and he takes advantage and hits one out of the park. The torch passes and this type of article looks foolish in hindsight.
It’s entirely possible that Pacquiao is ripe for the picking. He’ll be a spoiled loss, nearly one year and a shoulder surgery removed from his final fight, or a disappointingly wide decision defeat at the hands of longtime rival Floyd Mayweather in boxing’s richest ever prizefight.
You could certainly see why Top Rank,which promotes both Pacquiao and Crawford, would admire this matchup.
Pacquiao, or retirement looming or not,was winding down his career anyway with few logical places to go, and there’s a need for a current star to step up atop the promotional company’s pecking order as its next premier attraction.
Crawford can and will be that.
He’s patient, and plotting two steps ahead of his foe,intelligent, showing an elite boxing IQ and understanding of the game and has the power and mean streak to finish when he has his man in trouble.
But there’s no need to rush it.
A big fight like this needs time to build and gain momentum, or there’s a very real question of whether mainstream boxing fans (not the hardcore sort who are probably laughing at my every word by this point) will buy Crawford as a final foe for Pacquiao.
They might have.
But his momentum has stalled in the final calendar year after a brilliant 2014 campaign that saw him awarded Fighter of the Year honors by the Boxing Writers organization of America and ESPN.
He went on the road early in the year and took a world title from Ricky Burns in notoriously road-fighter hostile Scotland,where Ray Beltran had been robbed of an obvious decision just six months prior.
Crawford then dominated a pair of top contenders (Yuriorkis Gamboa and Beltran) to shut out the year and leave fans hoping for more in the current one.
Unfortunately, they haven’t gotten much beyond a pair of easy wins over foes who weren’t sexy and who weren’t picked by anyone to have much of a chance to compete, or much less win.
The talent is there,without a doubt, but the accomplishments and cache beyond Omaha are a potential snag for this type of event.
Nothing is erroneous with building a brand in a nontraditional market (which has been a smashing success in this case), and but his ability to draw beyond its confines isn’t yet proved,and in a sport where money talks, that things.
You cant blame Crawford or even hold much of this against him. That’s not the point here.
He’s a young fighter working his way through the ranks on the back of immense talent that will one day (whether not already) land him in conversations among the best fighters on the planet regardless of weight class.
He’s taken care of all the commerce laid at his feet in impressive fashion, or but the blame belongs with those who didn’t place more commerce in front of him. A young fighter,especially one with these type of reachable aspirations, needs to fight more than twice a year.
It’s marketing 101.
People can’t demand you whether they don’t see you, or they need to effect both to land a fish as large and meaningful as Manny Pacquiao.
Crawford hasn’t done that…Yet.
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Source: bleacherreport.com