Terence Crawford spared no prisoners when responding to Ryan Garcia’s latest comments.
The welterweight fighter, who won the WBC boxing world championship with a mature and disciplined display against Mario Barrios in February, recently appraised ‘Bud’s career as a whole by remarking he “left more of his legacy on the table.”
A five-weight world champion, Crawford retired from the sport following an extraordinary performance over Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez in 2025. This, two years after giving Errol Spence Jr. one of the all-time great 147-pound thrashings.
It was always unclear what Crawford could have gone on to achieve but considering he only fought once at super welterweight, and skipped middleweight to take Canelo’s super middleweight titles, he could have, in theory, dropped back to 160 to challenge for a belt there — together with six-weight champion status.
It’s something he himself acknowledged, calling the prospect of fighting Janibek Alimkhulany “dangerous.”
“Undisputed don’t mean anything if you know truly you didn’t challenge yourself,” Garcia said. “I’m speaking from knowing boxing and speaking from the heart as a fighter. Not just some random that can only see the surface level of the game.”
Crawford didn’t seem to appreciate the criticism from a fighter who had only just won his first title, and has two losses and one No Contest in his last five bouts.
“Too bad you wouldn’t have beat anyone I fought, tough guy,” he said on X.
“You just now becoming a champ by default. You lost then they gifted you a title shot after a loss because you just not that guy and they wanna make money off, you bum.”
The hostilities perhaps only fuel an eventual promotion between Garcia and Crawford’s protege Shakur Stevenson.
Though Crawford has retired, there remains a conveyor belt of talent through him, from Stevenson, to Shakur’s cousin Zaquin Moses, among others.
And Stevenson in particular, regarded a top-10 if not top-5 pound-for-pound talent in world boxing, has numerous options to fight next, after becoming a four-division world champion with a career-topping decision win over Teofimo Lopez, earlier this year.
Stevenson has been linked with numerous fighters, from Zuffa Boxing’s slugger Conor Benn, to Garcia, and it’s a fight Kingry has already claimed would be easy work for him, telling the Creators Think Podcast: “I’ve beaten a slick fighter already, Devin Haney, who is longer, stronger, and faster than Shakur.”
He finished: “Shakur’s better defensively, but he’s never faced a guy as fast and with timing like myself. It wouldn’t be a hard fight.”
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