Note: the title for this piece is extracted from a quote by Max Kellerman who broadcast this fight for HBO.
Terrence Crawford [19-0, 15 KOs] was a last minute substitution to fight much larger pressure fighter Breidis Prescott [26-4, 20 KOs]. Crawford was just ‘being thrown to the wolves’ in many peoples’ eyes. But he knew different. This fight was truly a clinic, and I recommend that every fighter watch this with his coach and or sparring partners.
If you are a young pressure fighter, a big KO hunting stalker like Breidis, you need to view this fight every bit as much as Special Forces soldiers need to learn about booby traps.
If you are that small-built intelligent fighter and you have guts, you could not pick a better role model than Terrence. If anyone today deserves the old moniker ‘sweet’ I think it is him. Terrence put on a beautiful boxing performance. He handled Prescott so easily that the crowd booed, prompting Max to compare those idiots to the drunks at MMA bouts who get bored with technical ground fighting.
I want every boxing fan and fighter to see this fight, not because it was entertaining in a dramatic fashion. It really wasn’t a fight. It looked like a visiting amateur middleweight stepping into the gym ring to spar with a pro lightweight and getting schooled. But even the dimwitted fans at the venue began to warm up to Terrence when they eventually figured out that he was brutally toying with Breidis.
Now, Prescott is a tall wide-backed stalker that is surely a nightmare for most pros to handle. He was not a poor fighter, but was made to look like one by Terrence. Watch Terrence in this fight for the following applications:
1. Switch-hitting and shifting. Terrence switched to southpaw and back as needed.
2. Staying out of the pocket, stepping around, and using angles, permitted Terrence to totally dominate the bigger man. This was like watching an aikido person make his art work against a karate man; angular versus linear.
3. Head fading and an active hand defense caused Breidis to reach and push with his punches, tiring him in such a way as to specifically degrade his punching even though his overall endurance did not suffer.
4. Terrence utilized the proper punches at the right time from southpaw, leading with the straight left and finishing with the right hook. He also went a step farther and jabbed a lot, which was made possible by his use of the vertical fist ‘sneaky jab’. This jab is usually used to get between the hands. Terrence used it to ride over the taller man’s lead left.
5. The most important weapon in Terrence Crawford’s arsenal was his mind. He pursued psychological combat on every level. He shut down the big man’s aggression with timing, attacking his confidence. He then further eroded his confidence with counter punching. Finally, toward the end of the fight Crawford turned the tables on Prescott and went on the hunt, fully integrating his arsenal and even using some verbal taunting, not in the show boating manner, but in a calculating cat versus mouse fashion.
Terrence Crawford, a 2008 Olympic alternate from Omaha Nebraska, used his art to make a big man small, a dangerous man ineffective, and turn the hunter into the hunted. If you coach or box watch this fight. If you are just a fan, and you look closely, I think you’ll find something to please the eye. Just don’t think you are watching something slick and tricky. What Crawford did takes grit. He was close enough to be touched by this KO machine all night long and turned that danger into performance art. On a technical level what Ali did to Foreman in Zaire was crude compared to this.
James, 4/8/2013
