Terence Crawford’s Saturday night destruction of Felix Diaz was another feather to his already well-plumed junior welterweight hat. Boz broke down the Dominican olympian in a much more thorough fashion than I anticipated and by the mid-rounds the competitive nature of the fight was over. HBO’s Harold Lederman thought Diaz gave up in the 9th and his corner called it off after the 10th.
Stats
Crawford, as expected, dominated the compubox stats. He landed 193 of 520 punches thrown, a solid 37 percent, but the power punches tell the story: he hit 139 of 235, a whopping 59 percent. He tee’d off on Diaz’s sloppy offense with fight dominating counters. Diaz landed 69 of 346 total and 58 of 285 power punches. That’s a dismal 20 percent on both accounts.
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Where does Crawford go from here? He spelled it out pretty clearly to Max Kellerman post-fight: Pacquiao, Thurman, some of the welterweight big names or the WBC and IBF light welterweight champion Julius Indongo, who was in attendance at Madison Square Garden. I imagine Bob Arum might be salivating at the idea of putting on a super fight between two of his best fighters. Whether Pacquiao would be game for such a thing is another thing entirely. At this point in his career I wouldn’t blame him for dodging that Omaha killer.
I have a hard time imagining Julius Indongo being willing to put up his two belts after Crawford’s cynical and Spanish inquisition-esque beating of Felix Diaz but at the moment that fight seems a little more compelling and proper. Why not give either fighter the chance to unify an entire division? It’s been a long time. Jermaine Taylor was the last one to hold the WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO and that undisputed and unified reign ended in December 2006.
Crawford shouldn’t settle for anything besides these two options: moving up to welterweight or a unification battle. Anything else would be a waste of his and our time.