An all-time great player, even though he has just entered his financial prime, announces his retirement, leaving, say, another $100 million on the table.
I know what you’re thinking.
NO.
Don’t doubt Terence Crawford. That’s what has fueled him all these years. This is what made him the undisputed champion at 140, 147 and 168 pounds. This is what made him the greatest fighter in the world (no offense to Oleksandr Usyk, for whom a case can also be made). And now, in violation of almost every boxing convention, it allowed him to retire on his own terms, undefeated at the very top of the game, after his signature victory.
The only other guy I know who has done this – and remained retired – is the great Andre Ward, who retired in 2017 after back-to-back victories over one-time featherlight heavyweight boogeyman Sergei Kovalev.
“What strikes me most about where Terence is, where I’ve been fortunate enough to get to – with your legacy, your abilities and your fortune intact – is that you’ve defeated the greatest opponent any warrior can face, an opponent who has defeated some of the greatest warriors who have ever lived,” Ward told me Tuesday night. “You have defeated the sport itself. You have overcome the doubters, the injuries, the praise and the criticism. You have overcome the risk: that single punch that could change your legacy and your life. That is slim air. You have defeated boxing.”
Boxing is full of pitfalls, starting with the fighter’s ego. The same ego that made you great makes you come back as a smaller version of yourself. Additionally, the game itself is almost rigged, favoring the bigger man against the smaller, younger man versus the older, so-called A-side fighter who generates the lion’s share of the revenue compared to everyone else. At 38, Crawford, who has spent most of his career outside the 147-pound weight class, didn’t stand out with those traits when he faced Canelo Alvarez in September. At the time, Canelo was not only the undisputed 168-pound champion, but also boxing’s most lucrative attraction. However, Crawford’s historic victory was even more one-sided than the unanimous scorecards might lead you to believe.
It all comes down to the two-sided concept of money and doubt. For a generation of fighters, some of whom were truly great but not great, the Canelo fight became the record of their lives. But for Crawford, Canelo became his “white whale,” an existential corrective to any doubters at any stage of his career. And there were plenty of them.
“This is the only fight I want,” Crawford told Turki Alalshikh, the president of the Saudi Entertainment Authority, which financed the Canelo fight.
At the time, Alalshikh was more interested in matching Crawford with Jaron “Boots” Ennis or Vergil Ortiz Jr., both undefeated 154-pound superstars. But Crawford didn’t want to hear about it.
“Boots is not a megafight,” he told me in September. “Vergil Ortiz is not a megafight. It’s the end of my career. They’ll say, ‘You were supposed to win.’ I want Canelo Alvarez.”
If you didn’t think he could beat Canelo back then, maybe you’ll think better now. Crawford will remain retired – if only because the boxing opportunities are always increasing. Doubt him if you must, just remember that when it comes to doubters, Crawford is undefeated. Before Canelo, there were those who thought he would never beat Errol Spence Jr., whose career he ended. There were those at his former promotional company, Top Rank, who honestly signed him when no other major promoter would, and concluded he would never be a huge attraction.
Crawford has had doubts in every league since the amateurs. Although in hindsight one has to wonder why, considering his amateur victory over a juvenile fighter as talented as Mikey Garcia. There was some doubt that Crawford was from Omaha, Nebraska, which was nowhere on the boxing map until he put it there.
Local police had doubts about Crawford. With the children on the corner. By some of his teachers. But most of all and most famously by his own mother, Miss Debra.
On the eve of his first title fight 11 years ago, Crawford found himself an underdog far from home, fighting Scottish champion Ricky Burns in Glasgow. Before her son left for Scotland, Miss Debra gave him her usual pre-fight pep talk. “You’re not…” she told her son. – I’ll kick your ass.
“I knew it would stick in his head,” she told me in 2018. “And he’ll go out there and kick some ass.”
In fact, that’s what happened: a little-known fighter traveling across continents to win a unanimous decision in the champion’s backyard. That’s how it started: his long, undefeated title streak.
But looking back, I think differently about Miss Debra. Mike Tyson has a theory about great fighters, starting with Alexander the Great, that they are all mommy’s boys. “That’s why Alexander kept pushing forward,” Tyson once said. “He didn’t want to come home and be dominated by his mother.”
By this standard, matriarch Crawford is on par with Olympus himself.
Thank you, Mrs. Debra.
Thank you, Terence.
It was a pleasure. It was a challenge. It was an honor.
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