That’s all for tonight. Thanks as always for following along with us and be sure to check out our full report from ringside.
The Compubox punch statistics give a quantitative context to the one-way traffic. Crawford landed a remarkable 185 of 369 shots (50.1%), including 98 of 163 power shots (60.1%). Spence was limited to 96 of 480 connects (20%), landing a scant 33 of 296 of his jabs (11.1%).
“He was just better tonight,” Spence says. “He was using the jab. My timing was a little bit off. He was just the better man tonight.”
The Texan adds: “He was just throwing the hard jab. He was timing with his jab. His timing was just on point. I wasn’t surprised by his speed or his accuracy. It was everything I thought.”
The contract for tonight’s fight included a two-way rematch clause that can be triggered by the loser within 30 days, although the winner will get to decide whether the fight will take place at 147lbs or 154lbs.
Spence has made no secret of his desire to leave 147lbs behind for good, opening up about his struggles to make the welterweight limit. But he doesn’t hesitate for a moment when asked whether he plans to exercise his option for a replay.
“We got to do it again,” Spence says. “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 go to do it again. Hopefully, it will happen 154.”
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“Like I said before, I only dreamed of being a world champion,” Crawford says. “I’m an overachiever. Nobody believed in me when I was coming up, but I made everybody a believer. I want to thank Spence and his team because without him none of this would have been possible.”
The Omaha native then reflects on becoming the first male fighter in boxing’s four-belt era to become an undisputed champions in multiple divisions.
“It means everything because of who I took the belts from,” he says. “They tried to blackball me. They kept me out. They talked bad about me. They said I wasn’t good enough and I couldn’t beat these welterweights. I just kept my head to the sky and kept praying to God that I would get the opportunity to show the world how great Terence Crawford is. Tonight, I believe I showed how great I am.”
Crawford goes on to confirm that taking away Spence’s jab was something they worked on during training camp.
“Errol Spence is a tremendous talent and he’s got a great jab,” he says. “We were worried about the jab coming in because that’s how he sets up all of his shots. Our main focus was the jab. You take away his best attribute. The rest is history.”
Here’s the official scorecard for tonight’s fight. All three ringside judges had it at 79-70 at the time of the stoppage, as did the Guardian.
Crawford wins by ninth-round TKO!
Round 9
Spence makes it through the first two minutes before Crawford opens up, pummeling his opponent with a barrage of uncontested shots. Spence has no legs under him. Referee Harvey Dock has seen enough and mercifully intervenes. Good stoppage. And a sensational performance by a generational talent.
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Round 8
Spence getting blitzed. He’s throwing punches but there’s just nothing behind them. Crawford in total control. Time for trainer Derrick James to make the decision his fighter too courageous to make.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Spence 9-10 Crawford (Spence 70-79 Crawford)
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Spence down twice in round seven!
Round 7
Crawford lands a couple more shots, then sends Spence to the canvas for a second with a combination about one minute into the round. Spence makes it to his feet and nearly makes it to the bell before the sent to the floor again with a devastating right hook. Crawford boxing beautifully, but this fight should probably be stopped.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Spence 7-10 Crawford (Spence 61-69 Crawford)
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Round 6
Spence is fighting on sheer willpower. He’s trying to come forward and pressure Crawford, even landing what look like good body shots, but there’s just nothing on them. Crawford sees everything coming from a mile away, almost like the fight is in slow motion. More in-fighting from Spence. Extraordinary accuracy from Crawford, whose jab has been his most devastating weapon.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Spence 9-10 Crawford (Spence 54-59 Crawford)
Round 5
The ring doctor climbs the apron to take a hard look at Spence before he goes out for the fifth round. Spence stumbled a bit as he returns to his corner. Not a good look, but he’s fine to continue. Spence resumes his power shots to the body, but it’s not long before Crawford is tagging Spence with punches from all angles. Spence is doing everything he can to keep attacking the body. When he lands a flush overhand, Crawford walks right through it unfazed. A famously ruthless finisher, Crawford might be near the finish line as Spence doesn’t look long for the day.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Spence 9-10 Crawford (Spence 45-49 Crawford)
Round 4
Crawford wobbles Spence with a right hand. Spence is bleeding from his nose early in the round. Crawford is throwing punches with mean intentions. The crowd is on their feet sensing something destructive could be coming. The difference in hand speed has become painfully apparent. Spence walking into punch after punch as Crawford coolly operates with surgical precision. This is becoming a one-sided fight.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Spence 9-10 Crawford (Spence 36-39 Crawford)
Round 3
Spence has come out for the third round looking to make a point. He lands an overhand left early then backs Crawford into a corner and opens fire but Crawford blocks most of them. Spence continues his work in the body. Spence lands a right and they’re trading combinations in the center of the ring! Spence is getting in the deepest trouble when he overextends on his punches (like what happened on the knockdown), giving an expert counter-puncher like Crawford an even bigger window than he needs.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Spence 9-10 Crawford (Spence 27-29 Crawford)
Spence down in round two!
Round 2
Spence is using deft footwark and pressure to move Crawford backward. Crawford misses with a couple of counters. Spence throws a couple of heavy shots but Crawford blocks them. Spence misses badly with a right to the body and Crawford makes him pay with a counter that dumps him to the canvas! Spence is down! He’s on his feet but Spence is in trouble! Crawford closes in but there’s the bell and Spence may have been saved by it!
Guardian’s unofficial score: Spence 8-10 Crawford (Spence 18-19 Crawford)
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Round 1
And we’re off! The fighter meet at the center of the ring and begin circling one another in southpaw stances. Spence is pawing more with the jab to establish range but each man is doing more feinting than fighting. After about a minute and a half of feeling out, Spence lunges in and moves Crawford backward with a right hand to the body. Spence lands another left to the body.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Spence 10-9 Crawford (Spence 10-9 Crawford)
Jimmy Lennon Jr is announcing the fighters from the center of the ring. No anthems tonight. The final instructions have been given by referee Harvey Dock, the seconds are out and we’ll pick it up with round-by-round coverage from here!
Here comes Spence! The WBA, WBC and IBF is making his way to the ring alongside Dallas rapper BigXthaPlug. This ends what’s been a bit of a mystery. The champion traditionally enters the ring after the challenger. But what happens when both fighters are champions? Even though Spence was the ‘A-side’ of the promotion, with his name appearing first on the bill, they agreed to flip a coin to determine who would walk out second (and be announced first).
Crawford chose heads and won the toss, which took place at Thursday’s final press conference with Mike Tyson doing the honors, but he declined to say which option he’d choose.
Turns out he’s chosen second. And here comes the WBO champion Crawford ... accompanied by Eminem performing Lose Yourself. Crowd predictably going apeshit.
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Tale of the tape
Here’s a look at how Spence and Crawford measure up ahead of tonight’s main event. Spence, who has a one-and-a-half-inch edge in height, is the naturally bigger man, having fought at 147lbs for all but one of his 28 professional fights (and 152lbs at the 2012 Olympics). Crawford won his first world title at 135lbs, but has a two-inch reach advantage owing to his lanky build and has carried his power up with him: cleaning out the cupboard at 140lbs and winning all seven of his fights at welterweight inside the distance.
Spence made the welterweight division limit of 147lbs while Crawford came in slightly under at 146.8lbs when the fighters took the scales at Friday’s official weigh-in, which happened behind closed doors at the MGM Grand. A ceremonial weigh-in open to the public took place several hours later at the T-Mobile Arena.
Crawford and Spence should be making their ringwalks shortly. In the meantime here’s a note from Justin Kavanagh, via email:
Really looking forward to this fight, as it’s so seldom that the top two in their weight class face off in this sport of fixed fights (in the legitimate sense). However, while Crawford is undoubtedly a great fighter, he is surely no historian, given what he said this week: “Ali and Fraizer, they were friends. History just repeats itself.” As anyone who read Mark Kram’s brilliant Ghosts of Manila will know, the two heavyweights ended up as mortal enemies, fighting for the “championship of each other.” Hopefully, history will repeat itself in echoing that rich trilogy inside the ring, but Crawford and Spence have so far shown a lot more respect for each other outside the ring.
Isaac Cruz has just won a 12-round split decision over Giovanni Cabrera in the final undercard fight before the main event. The Mexico City fighter escaped with the win in the WBA lightweight title eliminator but failed to make a statement against an opponent many believed he’d handle with ease. Glenn Feldman scored it 114-113 for Cabrera, while Trella (114-113) and Benois Roussel (115-112) had it for Cruz.
Safe to say the winner did little to strike fear in the heart of Devin Haney, the undisputed lightweight champion whose assessment of Cruz’s performance channeled Spinal Tap.
Cruz is Ass
— Devin Haney (@Realdevinhaney) July 30, 2023
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A couple of celebrities have started to mill into the arena. Manny Pacquiao drew the most attention as he made his way from the tunnel to his ringside seat alongside wife Jinkee during the closing rounds of the Santiago-Donaire fight. Chance the Rapper, NBA star Damian Lillard, former NFL player turned sports-shouting pundit Shannon Sharpe are here. Oh, and there’s Mike Tyson.
The final preliminary fight between Isaac Cruz and Giovanni Cabrera is into the closing stages. They’ve just shown both Spence and Crawford on the big screen between rounds and the reactions from the nearly full 20,000-seat arena suggest it might be a Crawford crowd.
Nonito Donaire has fallen short in his latest bid at history. The four-division champion known as the Filipino Flash, who was looking to break his own record by becoming the oldest bantamweight champion in boxing history, was outpointed over 12 rounds by Mexico’s Alexando Santiago, who picked up the WBC belt at 118lbs that was vacated by Naoya Inoue earlier this year. The ringside judges handed down a unanimous decision by scores of 115-113, 116-112 and 116-112. (The Guardian had it 116-112 to Santiago.)
“I feel good still, and a big congratulations to Alexandro, because he deserves it, he’s a tough guy,” the 40-year-old Donaire said. “I love the sport so much, but we gotta go back to the locker room and talk about it. I felt good, but some things just didn’t trigger. I didn’t pull the trigger. I was just trying to counter so much, trying to put too much power into it.”
“We were very focused, and in training camp, we tried to find the mistakes Nonito makes,” said Santiago, who improved to 27-3-5 with 14 KOs.
Asked what Donaire told him after the fight, Santiago said. “It’s been an honor to fight such a legend like Nonito Donaire, and he just told me thank you for this great fight.”
Donaire landed 130 of 495 punches (26.3%), compared to 130 of 609 for Santiago (21.3%), according to Compubox’s punch statistics.
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Some more historical bric-a-brac as we count down toward the main event. We’ve already mentioned how tonight’s feature attraction is the first undisputed welterweight championship fight in boxing’s four-belt era, which dates back to either 1988 or 2004, depending on who you ask. (Don’t ask.)
Additionally, Spence-Crawford is only the fourth welterweight title unification fight between unbeaten champions. The other three:
Donald Curry (WBA, IBF) v Milton McCrory (WBA) in 1985
Felix Trinidad (IBF) v Oscar De La Hoya (WBC) in 1999
Keith Thurman (WBA) v Danny Garcia (WBC) in 2017
Remarkably, it’s been 37 years s since all of the recognized world titles were on the line in a welterweight title fight: when Lloyd Honeyghan stopped the aforementioned Curry at Caesars Atlantic City to capture the WBA, WBC and IBF titles in one of the great upsets in the annals of British boxing.
As the Guardian’s John Rawling wrote about it:
The Ragamuffin Man’s seventh-round victory ranks second only to Randolph Turpin’s 1951 victory over Sugar Ray Robinson as the greatest upset in British boxing history as many classed Curry as the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter. Bobby Neill, who trained the Bermondsey fighter, remembers: “Nobody gave him a chance. All the press were talking about how many rounds it would go before Curry knocked him out. But I have never seen anybody so fixed in his belief that he would win as Lloyd. His training and mental attitude were unbelievable.
“Curry could punch with both hands and was a brilliant boxer but we reckoned he was open to left hooks to the body. Lloyd just went through the jabs and broke him up to the body. He had no fear, no trepidation and I have never seen a boxer who was given no chance be so completely and absolutely dominant. To go into a foreign country and win like that against a man like Curry was amazing.”
Honeyghan, at the time Mike Tyson’s favourite fighter, made three successful defences before losing to the Mexican Jorge Vaca the following year. After winning the re-match he made one more defence before losing his title to the American Marlon Starling in 1989.
Last thing (probably): Should Crawford win tonight, he’ll become the first male fighter in the four-belt era to become an undisputed champion in two different weight classes (at 140lbs and 147lbs).
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Yoenis Tellez made the most of an unexpected opportunity in tonight’s first televised preliminary fight. The 23-year-old Cuban junior middleweight prospect, who stepped in on two and a half weeks’ notice when unbeaten contender Jesus Ramos suffered a hand injury in training, delivered a statement victory with a third-round TKO of the Spanish veteran Sergio García.
The fight unfolded on even terms over the first two rounds, but Tellez dropped García with a concussive right hand early in the third. The Spaniard made it to his feet but Tellez swarmed his wounded prey until referee Robert Hoyle intervened at the 2:02 mark.
It was a precipitous step up in class for Tellez, who improved to 6-0 as a professional with five knockouts, but he more than proved up to the challenge.
“[The finish] was the assassin instinct that us Cubans have,” Tellez said through an interpreter. “As soon as I saw him [hurt] I knew it was time that he was done so I went for it.”
He added: My trainer Ronnie Shields and my whole team behind me, we worked on this during training camp, especially the right hand. And it came out just the way it was supposed to come out.”
What’s next?
“Right now my goal is not defined yet,” Tellez said. “But I want to face the best 154-pounders that are out there.”
Prelude
Hello and welcome to Las Vegas for tonight’s long-awaited showdown between Errol Spence Jr and Terence Crawford. We’re ringside at the T-Mobile Arena for a mouth-watering matchup of undefeated American stars more than five years in the making. Crawford (39-0, 30 KOs) has campaigned in the same weight class as Spence since 2018, when he moved up to capture the WBO’s version of the welterweight title and rumblings of a fight began in earnest. By then Spence (28-0, 22 KOs) was already the IBF’s champion at 147lbs and has since added the WBC and WBA belts.
That means the winner of tonight’s scheduled 12-round fight will become the first undisputed welterweight champion in boxing’s four-belt era, which dates back to 2004. He will also stake a credible claim, alongside Japanese terror Naoya Inoue, as the world’s best prizefighter regardless of weight: the so-called pound-for-pound No 1.
It’s the best fight that boxing can deliver. And it might have never happened if the fighters themselves hadn’t taken matters into their own hands:
It’s rare enough that two boxers at or near the top of the sport’s pound-for-pound list compete in the same weight class and rarer still that both are roughly the same age. A summit meeting between Spence and Crawford for all the welterweight marbles has been a no-brainer for years. But Spence is promoted by Premier Boxing Champions while Crawford spent most of his career with Top Rank: rival promotional companies who rarely cross the street to do business with each other.
Just when it seemed like it might be dying on the vine like so many other would-be blockbusters, a path forward emerged when Crawford reached out Spence on Facetime for a half-hour conversation in March to hash out the details. From there it wasn’t long before concessions were made, terms were agreed upon and the fight was made. Vegas when it sizzles.
It’s nearly 6pm in Las Vegas and the televised undercard is under way. The main event is expected to begin in two hours, give or take. Plenty to come between now and then.
Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s his lookahead to tonight’s main event.
