Terence Crawford, known by the nickname “Bud,” has already established himself as one of the greatest pound-for-pound boxers of his generation and possibly of all time. Even today, just 15 days shy of his 38th birthday on September 28, The Ring Magazine, also known as the “Bible of Boxing,” ranked Crawford as the current No. 3 pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
After 41 fights over 17 years, Crawford remains undefeated.
But even though he has already claimed world championships in four weight classes, rising from the 135 pound-limit lightweight class all the way to the 154-pound junior middleweight division, the Omaha, Nebraska, native on Saturday puts his entire legacy on the line, taking the tremendous risk of jumping all the way to the 168-pound level to face the undisputed champion of the super-middleweight division, Mexico’s Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
The two fighters weighed in just below the division limit, at identical weights of 167.5 pounds on Friday.
In a stunning shift from boxing’s decades-old model of broadcasting major championship boxing matches via pay-per-view, the fight will stream live, globally, on Netflix at no additional charge to the streaming giant’s subscribers.
That means it could reach a potential worldwide audience of 301 million people â which also means a huge percentage of the fights viewers will be seeing Crawford for the first time.
So, here’s what you need to know about him.
He Started Boxing to Escape an Unhappy Home Life
Like many boxers, unfortunately, Crawford had a difficult upbringing. In a 2019 interview with ESPN.com he described his parents as “always arguing… both of ’em want to get drunk and argue and then, you know, that was pretty much it.”
His mother, called Miss Debra, was also physically abusive toward him, he said in the interview.
“I done got hit with a belt, a toy, a stick, extension cord, a switch off a tree, whatever. At the same time, my pain tolerance went up. … I wasn’t scared. I knew what was coming.”
When he was in eighth grade, after being thrown out of five different schools for fighting, he joined the CW Boxing Club in Omaha and began the career that would define him.
His Uncle Was Murdered When Crawford Was a Child
Crawford’s uncle Michael was his mother Debra’s brother. The circumstances of his murder remain unclear, though the family believes that he was stabbed by a girlfriend. The young Crawford had a close relationship with his uncle and his death was a serious childhood trauma for the future boxing champion, giving him frequent childhood nightmares.
“I used to visualize the casket. I wanted to sleep with my mom. I couldn’t even take a bath by myself, because I’m thinking someone’s going to come get me,” he once said.
Michael also boxed, and friends and family say that Terence Crawford’s style, notably his frequent switching from orthodox (i.e. right-handed) to southpaw stances, was much like that of his late uncle.
He Was Once Shot in the Head
In August of 2008, just five months after his professional boxing debut, Crawford “was sitting in his car in the early hours of the morning after a dice game in his native Omaha, Nebraska when shots rang out and a bullet ripped through the back window and slashed his head below the ear,” according to a CNN report.
In an almost unbelievable stroke of luck, the bullet merely grazed his skull â avoiding a fatal head wound by centimeters. But the shooting, Crawford told CNN, changed his entire outlook on his life and future.
âAnd thatâs when everything started happening there for me with boxing and my family and just everything. My life just took a big turn and started going uphill,” he said.
In 2016, He Was Convicted of Disorderly Conduct
Though he was already one of most successful boxers the world, Crawford was not above street-level trouble. His conviction on disorderly conduct and property damage charges stemmed from a dispute in an Omaha Auto Body Shop.
Unhappy with the shop’s work on his vintage 1984 Chevy Monte Carlo, Crawford took it on himself to lower the car off the shop’s hydraulic lift and take it away without paying the $1,350 he still owed for the repairs. But in doing so, he caused $3,000 in damage to the lift.
Sentenced to 90 days in jail and two years probation, Crawford paid a $10,000 bond and appealed the conviction. His lawyer declared the sentence excessive and an appellate judge agreed, overturning the jail term which Crawford never served. His two years of probation remained, however.
He Twice Visited Africa With a Charitable Group
Crawford has earned a reported $40 million in his boxing career, but he still finds time for charitable works.
In 2015 he joined his former fourth-grade teacher Jamie Nollette â co-founder of Pipeline Worldwide, a nonprofit group â to make not one but two trips to poverty-stricken areas of Rwanda and Uganda.
“It just made me appreciate things more,” Crawford said of his journeys to those countries, as quoted by writer Leo Adam Biga who was also on the trips. “I haven’t in my life experienced anything of the nature they’re experiencing over there. For one thing, they don’t have clean water â I have clean water. That’s one of their biggest issues and I want to help them with it.”
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