Terence Crawford Seizes the Moment to Become Undisputed Boxing Champion

Two days before the biggest fight of his boxing career, Terence Crawford posted an Instagram video in which he asked fellow champion Shakur Stevenson: “Who should walk me out?” 

“You know what I was thinking would be crazy?,” Crawford said ahead of his highly anticipated welterweight title bout against Errol Spence Jr. “I think it would be dope to have Eminem walk me out.” 

“I ain’t gonna lie, Eminem’s a GOAT,” Stevenson replied. “I ain’t never seen him walking nobody out in a boxing ring,” he said.

Hours later, the Grammy-Award winning rapper posted a reply: “This is 2 crazy!!! You [are] 1 of my favorite boxers!”

And with that, a collaboration was born.

On Saturday night, Eminem led the ring walk as his hit song “Lose Yourself” played to a capacity crowd at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

“If you had one shot or one opportunity…

To seize everything you ever wanted…one moment…

Would you capture it? Or just let it slip?”

Crawford, the WBO welterweight champion, seized the opportunity to take Spence’s WBC, WBA and IBF belts, and became the undisputed welterweight champion of the world. Crawford is the first man in the four-belt era to hold all four titles in the 147-pound division.

In a masterful performance, Crawford, 35, used his superior speed and counterpunching ability to knock down Spence in the second round and twice more in the seventh, before referee Harvey Dock stepped in to stop the fight at 2:32 of the ninth round. 

Spence briefly protested the stoppage but appeared to have lost every round on the judges’ scorecards after taking the opening stanza.

“Tonight, I believe I showed how great I am,” Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) said after the bout.

After years of buildup, the fight between Crawford and Spence finally took place after Crawford initiated a FaceTime call with Spence. One of the barriers to the bout had been that the rivals were signed to different promotions, with Spence at Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) and Crawford with Top Rank. But Crawford has since become a free agent.

Spence (28-1, 22 KOs) came out aggressively, using his jab to attack Crawford to the body.

But in the second round, Crawford caught Spence with a right cross that staggered Spence and sent him to the canvas for the first time in his career. 

“We practice that,” said Crawford. “Normally in camp we do a flick and jab. But we knew that wasn’t going to work with Errol Spence because he’s durable, he’s strong. So we had to practice a strong firm jab. The jab hit him and stopped him in his tracks.”

In the seventh round, Crawford dropped Spence twice. The first knockdown in the round came on a right counter uppercut and the other on a right hook that stunned Spence, who was fortunate that the bell rang to end the round as the referee finished his standing-eight count. 

Two rounds later, the fight came to an end as Dock saved Spence from further punishment.

Crawford dominated the CompuBox stats with an 185 to 96 advantage in punches landed. Crawford’s connect rate of 50% (185 of 369) for the fight is rarely achieved in a bout against a three-belt champion. Crawford also had a 87-33 edge in jabs and 98-63 in power punches.

“I only dreamed of being a world champion,” said Crawford. “I’m an overachiever. Nobody believed in me when I was coming up, but I made everybody a believer.”

Spence has the contractual right to ask for a rematch and indicated he would do so after the bout, but preferred a weight limit of 154 pounds for the next battle.

“We gotta do it again,” said Spence. “I’m going to be a lot better. It’ll be a lot closer. It’ll probably be in December and the end of the year. I say we gotta do it again.”

Write to Jim Chairusmi at [email protected]