Both Terence Crawford and Isral Madrimov were pleased with their performances on the weekend but only one of them came away with the win.
In his ambitious bid to become a four-weight world titleholder, Crawford 41-0 (31) successfully stepped up to junior middleweight where he annexed the WBA 154-pound belt from champion Madrimov 10-1-1 (7) at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles, California on Saturday night.
It looked like a fight that could’ve gone either way, but all three judges scored the bout for Crawford, 116-112, 115-113 and 115-113.
The 36-year-old southpaw from Omaha, Nebraska, boxed a controlled fight but was hit a lot more than we are accustomed to seeing by the patient sniper Madrimov, 29, of Uzbekistan, who was able to find a home for his straight right hand.
“It was one of those missions that we were on and I wasn’t going to let nobody, or nothing take it away from us,” said Crawford, who was previously the undisputed king at junior welterweight and welterweight.
“I felt great, it was no different from 147, to be honest. Israil was just a strong opponent.
“The right hand wasn’t bothering me; I wasn’t worried too much about the right hand. He landed it a couple of times at the end of the round when he was trying to steal the round.
“I was trying to counter but at the same time he had a good game plan, had a lot of feints and I was just trying to dictate when he was going to come – a lot of times I was wrong.
“I wouldn’t say it was my toughest fight. I think ‘Mean Machine’ [Egidijus Kavaliauskas] was a tougher fight than that, I think [Yuriorkis] Gamboa was a tougher fight, I think [Jose] Benavidez was a tougher fight. I may have got the knockout, but they were tough fights in their own right.
“I was touching him up with the jab, I think my jab was beating him up all through the fight. He landed a couple of right hands that were telling for the judges or the fans, but it was nothing that I had never seen before.”
Crawford added that Madrimov’s amateur pedigree was on full display in the fight.
“We knew he had good movement, we knew he was strong, we knew he was durable,” he said. “If I was to say anything that surprised me it would be his patience, he was real patient in there. I wouldn’t say he surprised me with 10 fights because you’ve got to understand he’s got over 300 amateur fights.
“He knows how to fight, he knows how to move around in the ring, he knows how to capitalise on peoples’ mistakes and he’s been around the game a minute now.
“Just because he’s got 10 fights that doesn’t mean nothing, look at [Vasiliy] Lomachenko and all these other fighters that are getting title shots with 15 fights, two fights, because they are on a fast track because of their amateur pedigree.”
Crawford shrugged off comments from Madrimov’s promoter Eddie Hearn, who said his guy deserved to get the nod on the judges’ scorecards.
“You’ve got to understand that’s his fighter, he’s going to say anything he can to hype it up,” Crawford said. “He knows that guy lost, and so does his team, and so does [Madrimov].”
