Israil Modrahimovich Madrimov vs. Terence Allan Crawford

If Madrimov had 20 fights as opposed to only 10, experience fighting at the elite level against top 10 guys, and wasn't so inactive, only fighting once a year for the last 3 years and twice in the previous 2 to that which is crazy considering he's still only a 10 fight rookie now, this would probably be the first time I'd be picking against Crawford. But the fact that Crawford will be bigger than Madrimov despite it being his fourth weight class is also pretty crazy.

Also, Madrimov is going to need to KO Crawford over there because they'll stack the deck with a home ref and three home judges and obviously they'll rob him if it does go the distance and he deserves to win because that's how they play fair over there and treat foreigners. So everything is stacked heavily against Madrimov.

That being said, Madrimov hits extremely hard, especially for his size, with both hands, and Crawford has somehow managed to have 40 fights whilst barely having fought any legit punchers, especially ones his size, let alone legit KO artists. FTR, I'm not saying he's been ducking punchers as such but rather he's just been extremely fortunate in the regard that the minefields he's had to traverse spanning three weight divisions have been full of of non life-threatening mines. He's fought a ton of absolute featherfists and average punchers at best and on one of the only occasions he fought a legit banger his size in Mean Machine he got dropped and Madrimov will be by far the hardest puncher he's ever fought so that's what makes it most interesting for me. Crawford will be fighting his first legit genuine KO artist above C level who possesses the power to flatten him and if Madrimov is able to land his bombs with any consistency and get past Crawford's much longer reach and stiff-arming or quasi stiff-arming I'll be surprised if he doesn't hurt him badly, drop him or knock his ass out