It’s a long day of boxing capped with another title fight. This time HBO Boxing brings us Terence “Bud” Crawford (30-0, 21 KOs) defending his WBC World Super Lightweight and WBO World Super Lightweight belts against Felix Diaz (19-1, 9 KOs) at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
In the undercard, we’ll see Raymundo Beltran (32-7-1, 20 KOs) fight Jonathan Maicelo (25-2, 12 KOs) for the vacant WBA International Lightweight title, the NABF Lightweight title and the WBO NABO Lightweight title.
As always, scroll on down for the live blog. Keep reading for the press release from HBO.
NEW YORK — At first glance, there isn’t much, beyond their shared their profession, that Gennady Golovkin and Terence Crawford would appear to have in common: not their nationalities, nor their upbringings, nor even their fighting styles. But scratch beneath the surface, and the similarities are there.
Quiet and respectful to interlocutors outside the ring, both flip switches and become stone cold destroyers when they step between the ropes. Neither appreciates the kind of pre-fight smack talk from opponents that they feel crosses into disrespect, not just of them but of boxing itself. When middleweight contender Curtis Stevens took to social media to post an image of he and some friends standing with a casket they had made for Golovkin, the Kazakh champion responded with a prolonged pummeling of his American foe, closing with an angry postfight exhortation to the beaten opponent – and the world at large – that “you must respect box.” After calling out Crawford and promising to take the Nebraskan’s junior welterweight title back to Canada, Dierry Jean received a 10-round beating punctuated by Crawford yelling at him, “Did you get what you’re looking for?”
But their greatest commonality is that both Golovkin and Crawford are extremely good at their job – so much so, in fact, that they have at times appeared to be too good for their own good. Golovkin has spent the past several years bludgeoning one overmatched foe after another while waiting for a meaningful challenge; he finally received that challenge in March, in the form of Daniel Jacobs, and his reward at overcoming the New Yorker is the matchup he has long coveted: a blockbuster showdown with Canelo Alvarez, which will take place on September 16 on HBO PPV.
Somewhat like Golovkin, Crawford has been going through the gears, taking on a succession of opponents who, through no fault of his own, have been no match for him. For David Lemieux, Martin Murray or Matthew Macklin, substitute Ray Beltran, Hank Lundy, or John Molina. But Golovkin’s plaintive call for a Canelo clash has now been answered; Crawford is more reticent about naming his would-be big-name foil, but his promoter has been more forthcoming. Should Crawford overcome Felix Diaz on Saturday (HBO World Championship Boxing, 10:15 PM ET/PT), and perhaps claim the last remaining belt in his division from Julius Indongo, then the reward that may very well await him, the bauble that has been dangled in front of him teasingly for over a year now, is Manny Pacquiao.
The fight is on HBO at 10:15 p.m. EST. Watch them with me.
