Controversial Opinion: Considering context, Israil Madrimov may be Crawford's toughest Opponent

It's not really saying much for a P4P great and 40 fight vet though.

This is the cream of the crop

Spence
Postol
Gamboa
Porter

Spence forged a career on cleaning out 147 of its career 140 pounders and featherfists and the fact he was ever ranked near the P4P top 5, let alone in it was absolutely comical. He's still ranked #7 for goodness sake

He's only fought two career 147 pounder world champs in his entire career and he struggled badly against both.

Imagine Beterbiev forged a career cleaning out 175 of all its career 168 pounders, most of whom featherfists or light to average punchers at 175, and say BJS, and then in his only two fights against career 175 pounders he struggled badly?

This is embarrassing

Brook KO 65%
Ugas KO 37% career 140 pounder who came up
Danny KO 52% career 140 pounder - low KO% at 147
Mikey KO 71% blown up 135 pounder whose KO% above 135 = zero
Peterson KO 41% career 140 pounder
Algieri KO 31% - career 140 pounder
Bundu KO 32%
Van Heerden KO 36%
Ocampo KO 60% even Spence admitted Ocampo had no power
Lo Greco KO 47%
Porter KO 47%

I told you all for years his chin was suspect and look who was right again?

Career 140 pounder Postol was a good fighter but his claim to fame is beating a washed Lucas on a freak eye injury after holding and spoiling in the first half of the fight like he graduated at the American school of slickness. Postol was dropped twice in his subsequent fight to Crawford by a 13 fight novice (only one KD counted) and he was badly hurt and on Bambi legs and only narrowly avoided get KO'd. And then losing to a green 12-0 Josh Taylor who had had never been past 9 rounds before or fought a prime world class fighter before.

Crawford fans will try and have you believe that Terry ruined Postol and that Postol beat a prime Lucas but of course that doesn't hold any weight because Crawford spent the entire 12 rounds of the fight on his bicycle stinking the joint out inflicting minimal damage on Postol sans two flash KDs one of which was a rabbit punch which predictably the home ref chose to count, just like his home ref in the Egis fight chose not to count Egis' legit KD of Crawford. But Lucas was apparently in his prime after being involved in 3 brutal wars in 3 of his previous 4 fights against Danny Garcia, John Molina and Ruslan where he took a ton of punishment

I even predicted on here before the Ruslan that both he and Lucas were going to take a huge chunk out of each other and that the winner and loser may well be finished after that fight and once against Serge was bang on the money

Lucas' heart was no longer in the game after those brutal wars and getting robbed in the US numerous times


And Postol weighed less against Crawford at 140 than Crawford did at 135 against Beltran and was 5lbs lighter on the night than Crawford was

Gamboa was a huge size mismatch. Gamboa was a natural 126/130 pounder who had no right being at 135 and he was outweighed on the night by 7lbs and giving away an outrageous 9 inches in reach

In Gamboa's only previous fight at the weight he laboured to a tough UD win against Darley's Perez, that's the same Perez who was KO'd by the light punching Anthony Crolla a few years later.

Gamboa's record and form at 135 is very poor and he has only stopped 2 of his 13 opponents at that weight

Porter who is a good but pretty average and another light puncher and he had only fought once in 26 months going into that fight, and not at all in 15 months because he had to undergo double hip replacement surgery during that time

So even though Madrimov is only a 10 fight pro novice he might well be the best opponent Crawford will have faced. And this fight will certainly be one of the extremely rare instances where Crawford will have fought a legit banger his own size or closer to his size because Madrimov is a small 154 pounder who I'm predicting Crawford will weigh more than on the night and Crawford already has a much longer reach

He walks around lighter than what Crawford weighs in the ring at 147, or at worst the same amount, let alone what Crawford will weigh up at 154

This quote is from an interview is 2020

“To be honest, I could easily make 147lbs. I walk around at roughly 160-164lbs, so it would not be a difficult cut for me. Some welterweights like Errol Spence are bigger than me, even. But I did not want to compete there, because my priority is winning world titles and I knew that it would be very hard to get a title shot in the division. The way boxing politics is, the best at the weight would have avoided me.''


154lbs is much better for me - it is a very open division, the titles change hands a lot but there are many good fighters who I can beat to build my legacy. I want the biggest fights, and I will get them in this division. When some of the welterweights like Spence and Garcia move up as well, they will be more likely to face me if I am champion.”

-- Israel Madrimov

Crawford walks around significantly/much more than that and looks super lean even at 170-ish

He posted a photo of him weighing 177lbs on the scales six years ago for goodness sake and he said he weighed 180 late last year

His trainer said this too

“What a lot of people don't know is that Terrance can walk around at 180 lbs, and he's healthy. “

 

Why would I do a breakdown of Madrimov's opponents he only had 11 fights and only fought two fringe world class opponents?