Terence Crawford is the talk of the boxing universe at the moment, with many fans labelling him as the fighter of a generation after he claimed the undisputed welterweight title. Now, ‘Bud’ believes that he is just one fight away from becoming ‘the all-time-great.’
Crawford dominated Errol Spence Jr before stopping him in the ninth round to take all four belts at 147lbs in one of the most impressive performances since the turn of the millennium.
Already, there are fans of Crawford who believe that he would have succeeded in any welterweight era and could have even been the man to defeat Floyd Mayweather Jr had their timelines aligned.
In an interview on ‘The Porter Way Podcast’, Crawford identified the one fight that he wants to cement his legacy before retirement.
“All I got is Jermell [Charlo] now, to solidify myself as the all-time-great of all boxing.”
“Of course [I would retire after Jermell], 100%.”
“I don’t like Jermell, for the simple fact that I think he is a fake individual. I feel like Errol is real, he’s genuine, he stands ten toes on everything that he says and does, Jermell is one of those guys that does a lot for attention. I was cool with Jermell and Jermall, and their older brother, prior to me moving up in weight.”
“I understand that they’re stablemates, he trains with Errol’s coach and they’ve been knowing each other for a long time. For him to start bashing me, talking bad about me, saying that I’m going to get knocked out, going out of his way to say s**t about me, that some h** s**t, we don’t do s**t like that.”
Nearly 36, ‘Bud’ is under no illusions that he has one more move up in weight in him – unfortunately, his timeline hasn’t aligned to make the Jermell Charlo fight immediately.
He has a contractual rematch with Spence hanging over him, and Charlo is currently scheduled to move up to super-middleweight to face Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez.
Upon doing so, he will be stripped of at least one of his current super welterweight belts, meaning a ‘Bud’ victory, as impressive as it would be, would not crown him the first three-division undisputed champion.