Crawford dominates Spence Jr to become undisputed welterweight champ

“He was the better man tonight and I have no excuses,” former three-belt welterweight boxing champion Errol Spence Jr said last Saturday night after his first defeat in 29 fights. In what surprisingly turned out to be a one-sided fight before a sold out crowd at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada and millions of eager fans worldwide, on television Spence suffered a TKO (technical knockout) loss in nine rounds to Terence Crawford.

Referee Harvey Dock called an end to the fight at two minutes 32 seconds in round nine, after Spence, who was bleeding from the mouth and nose, took several unanswered punches to the head. Crawford’s record is now 40-0.

It was a fight that had been talked about for several years between Spence, whose father is from Hanover in Jamaica, and who held the World Boxing Association, World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation welterweight titles, and Crawford from Omaha, Nebraska, who held the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) belt.

At the end of the night, Crawford was boxing’s undisputed welterweight champion, after overwhelming Spence with an awesome display of guile and punching power. Crawford also added his name to the history books, becoming an undisputed champion for the second time, having done so back in 2017 as a junior welterweight.

Because of the credentials of both boxers, everyone expected a close, hard-fought battle, but it was not to be. Spence won the first round, and after that he was completely outboxed by Crawford. He was put on the canvas three times, once in round two and twice in round seven, and never looked like getting back into the fight. Crawford used his jabs to the head and body to keep his opponent at bay, and his constant flow of punches kept Spence out of the fight.

He was confident and methodical, and everything that he did was done with purpose. Spence tried hard to get back into the fight several times, but one could see quite early that he was not able to produce the fire of old. Being out of the ring for long periods obviously took its toll, as he was not as sharp as usual. He had a near-fatal road accident in October 2019 that sidelined him for months, but he came back from that and defeated Danny Garcia in 2020. He then had eye surgery in 2021, which sidelined him again, but on his return to the ring on April 16, 2022, he defeated Yordenis Ugas. He did not fight again until last Saturday, and it showed.

Crawford, in the meantime, had two fights in 2018 and again in 2019, and one each in 2020, 2021 and 2022, in defence of his WBO title, and was much sharper. He was dominant throughout the fight on Saturday and showed that on the night, he was the best in the world in his weight class.

It was good to see both fighters show respect for each other throughout the night, before and after the fight. There is a return-fight clause in their contracts which both men said that they will honour. The only problem could be the weight class at which they will fight. Spence has recently been having trouble making the welterweight limit of 147 pounds, and wants to move up to junior middleweight, so that will, without doubt, be a talking point.