Date:  Saturday – August 19, 2017

WBO/WBA/IBF/WBC  JR. WELTERWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP TITLE BOUT

Location:  Pinnacle Bank Arena, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

Promoter:  Top Rank / Bob Arum

Supervisor:  John Duggan, Esq.

Referee:  Jack Reiss

Judges:  Glenn Feldman, Max De Luca, Steve Weisfeld

Results: The WBO Champion Terence Crawford Crawford gains the WBA and IBF junior welterweight titles, adding to the WBC and WBO belts, when he  dropped Julius Indongo in the second round, before finishing him off in the third on a hard body shot. Julius Indongo (22-1, 11 KO) was down for the full ten count,

TV:   ESPN3

By Robert Hough

Light welterweights Terence Crawford and Julius Indongo are set to fight Saturday in an ultra-rare, four-belt unification bout. The match, in Lincoln, Nebraska, will be televised live on ESPN and ESPN Deportes at 10 p.m. ET and streamed live via the ESPN app.

Here’s what they had to say today:

Terence Crawford: “(Indongo) is at the end of his career. He doesn’t have a lot of choices. He can’t wait around for a long time…He has good legs. It seems like he can punch a bit. He doesn’t let his opponent get inside.”

Julius Indongo: “It’s something huge. It’s very big. It’s very meaningful…I am a humble guy but I don’t fear anybody. My focus, my game-plan, everything is in position…Although people never knew me, this is the right time to show the world.”

Top Rank President Todd duBoef: “This is a global sport. In America, we’re relatively isolated to a small pool of fighters. What Indongo did was, the door of opportunity opened and he stepped through it. This goes back to what makes boxing so special. People take advantage of those opportunities and a diamond in the rough is discovered.”

Photo: Mikey Williams/Top Rank

 

By Cliff Rold

Title unification was never easy.

That was true well before the WBC broke away from the WBA in the 1960s. In the 1930s, the middleweight and flyweight titles had a slew of claimants to the world title. Everyone was making enough money that holding off on ultimate ‘unification’ took about a decade to complete.

Money is the root of it after all.

Most of the fighters who hold belts aren’t worried about losing a boxing match. They’re worried about losing a check. If you’re a Strawweight champion making five figures for a title fight, that’s a hell of a lot better place to be than the strawweights without a belt. Risking a title against another champion makes it harder to make a living. It only makes sense if it pays well more than defending often in front of a paying home court until a dangerous mandatory comes along.

It’s not very sporting but, for most of the beltholders in boxing, it’s rational.

They made the risk worth the reward for the fighter with more to lose this weekend.

To be sure, both Julius Indongo and Terence Crawford have a lot on the line. Each holds two of the four most recognized sanctioning body titles. They stand to have the largest audience of their respective careers on ESPN (10 PM EST/7 PM PST) with solid fight week coverage to get the word out.

Unlike Crawford (31-0, 22 KO), an American fighter with an established base of fans in Nebraska and lots of US TV exposure, Indongo (22-0, 11 KO) likely has less chance to rebound if he loses this weekend. Indongo is already 34 and, for most American fans, unknown even with his WBA and IBF belts.

Indongo might have been able to milk those belts for a while and spread out the paydays. Instead, he’s trying to finish a gutsy road trip trifecta.

Namibia’s Indongo went to Russia and knocked out Russia’s Eduard Troyanovsky (26-1, 23 KO) last year for the IBF strap. He went to Glasgow to beat Scotland’s Ricky Burns for the WBA strap.

Now he’s in Lincoln Nebraska trying to go from invisible man to undisputed champion in three fights.

Lose memorably and there could be other days for Indongo. Lose wide and he may be forgotten as quickly as he emerged. Indongo is gambling big on himself and deserves credit for it.

Crawford merits plenty of credit too. The WBC, WBO, and lineal champ is a talented fighter on the cusp of the real high dollar promised land. Indongo is the sort of guy a man in his position might not normally want to mess with. Indongo is longer, taller, and has shown the pressure of being the away team does not stifle him.

The risk for Crawford isn’t that a loss could make him anonymous. For Crawford, the risk is that a loss could provide a long-term rationale for fighters to avoid him and cut off his avenues to the biggest fights that could be made.

He is, in some sense, where the late Vernon Forrest found himself in 2003. After two wins over “Sugar” Shane Mosley, Forrest was the lineal welterweight champion and the consensus 2002 Fighter of the Year. He could begin to realistically dream about chasing the golden goose of his era: Oscar De La Hoya. All he had to do was keep winning and hope public pressure and consistent victory opened a door down the road.

Forrest opted for a unification clash with wild swinging, big talking Ricardo Mayorga. The odds were heavily in Forrest’s favor.

Mayorga stopped him in three and then won a decision in the immediate rematch.

Forrest was far from done. HBO and Showtime still had room for him and he added two reigns at Jr. middleweight. It was a hell of a career.

It just never quite landed on the jackpot fight.

Crawford has won recognition from both Ring and TBRB as the rightful champion at lightweight and Jr. welterweight. He’s already had a hell of a career but the true riches lay just a little farther away. This might be the absolute worst time to lose he could find.  

It’s what makes this a fight to be excited about. While both men are getting a reported seven figures, that’s not the sort of sum after taxes that puts one in a safe zone for life. They’re getting good money in the hopes of great money somewhere down the line.

They’re also fighting to do something only one other fighter has done.

Since the WBO came into existence in the late 1980s, only two fighters have held all four major belts simultaneously: Bernard Hopkins who unified the middleweight crown and Jermain Taylor who took it from him. The winner Saturday will be the third.

Unification was never easy. In the four-belt era, it’s so difficult almost no one even bothers to try.

Crawford and Indongo are both bothering. Who will find their risk rewarded?  

www.boxingscene.com/terence-crawford-julius-indongo-risk-all-around–119595?print_friendly=1

crawford-postol-final-presser (3)

By Victor Salazar

New York – WBC/WBO world champion Terence Crawford (31-2, 22 KO’s) did what he normally does on Saturday night; take a formidable opponent and make him look like he doesn’t belong in the same ring. Felix Diaz (19-2, 9 KO’s) is an Olympic gold medalist and a very credible junior welterweight who many felt had defeated Lamont Peterson in a controversial decision loss.

But against Crawford, Diaz might have not won a single round. Crawford even fought Diaz south paw the whole fight. This was something his promoter, Bob Arum of Top Rank, Inc. has expected ever since his first showing on HBO.

“Ever since his first fight on HBO, I thought he was going to be the best of the best,” Arum told reporters ringside after the fight this Saturday. “I thought tonight, he fought a really tough guy and he handled with him with ease. He just gets better and better.”

The plan is to make a fight with Julius Indongo (22-0, 9 KO’s) for all of the 140 pound-titles this summer and then likely go after a mega fight after.

“We want to unify with (Julius) Indongo and get all four belts, once we get all the belts this summer, he’s going to fight Pacquiao and we’re going to set it up with my new partner Warren Buffet,” joked Arum.

In the history of boxing there is somewhat of a changing of the guard or passing of the torch when a once famed superstar fights an up and coming fighter. In victory, the up and coming star makes his name off that fight.

Arum sees a fight between Manny Pacquiao (59-6-2, 38 KO’s) and Terence Crawford differently, not as a changing of the guard but a competitive fight that people will pay to see.

“No changing of the guard, it’s a fight that people want to see and pay for or a fight, they won’t pay for,” Arum explained about a potential fight between Pacquiao and Crawford.

“The changing of the guard is bullsh*t fake news like you guys say. It’s fake news. If people want to see the fight and it economically will do justice to both guys. I think it would be a terrific fight and I’d make the fight.”

www.boxingscene.com/arum-on-crawford-plans-indongo-fight-first-then-pacquiao–116892?print_friendly=1

crawford-indongo

By Tamas Pradarics

It seems the possibility of a Terence Crawford vs Julius Indongo junior-welterweight super fight has got a second wind. The idea of such a match-up was born in the minds of boxing fans when IBF/IBO 140-pound champ Indongo (21-0, 8 KO’s) travelled to Glasgow, Scotland to unifiy with WBA titlist Ricky Burns (41-6-1, 14 KO’s) this last April.

With Crawford having the rest of the titles in the division and all-belt unifications are an absolute rarity in pugilism, at least in the last couple of decades, expectations were through the roof after Namibian Indongo’s masterful performance over the more accomplished Burns in a one-sided twelve-round unanimous decision win.

Unfortunately the International Boxing Federation announced shortly after the bout that Indongo has to face his mandatory, Sergey Lipinets next.

Talks about a potential Crawford-Indongo showdown cooled off by the statement and the match-up was believed a no-go until this last Saturday night. Fans at the legendary Madison Square Garden and in front of television sets watching HBO World Championship Boxing recognized the Namibian fighter in the crowd during WBC/WBO champ Crawford’s recent title defense against Dominican Felix Diaz.

Later in the telecast Jim Lampley, blow-by-blow commentator of HBO did mention Indongo’s name more then once as a possible future opponent for Terence Crawford.

The undefeated Omaha-native himself told during his post-fight interview following his win over Diaz that he is willing to face Indongo next.

BoxingScene.com reached out to the Namibian fighter’s response regarding such a super fight.

”Firstly, I would like to congratulate Crawford for an amazing victory over Diaz. He is a real champion and worthy of my praise. He showed real character and skill and that is what brings out the best in me against any opponent in the ring. My team and I flew 20 hours from Namibia just to come and watch his fight and I am ready to face him,” told Indongo.

Namibian promoter Nestor Tobias, who also serves as the trainer of his world champion protegee, believes that a showdown between Crawford and Indongo is really what the fans want to see.

”We are willing to make [that bout] happen provided the Crawford camp feels the same,” stated Tobias, who added they have a number of plan B’s if negotiations with Top Rank would fall through on Crawford-Indongo.

”Another likely option [for Julius] is Adrien Broner among others, but we will keep our options open and go for the most competitive fight for ourselves and the fans.”

The winner of a potential Crawford-Indongo super fight would only be the third fighter since the founding of the World Boxing Organizations in 1988 to hold all four belts at the same time in any division.

Boxing aficionados all over the world are dreaming about this fight. Let’s hope it comes true.

www.boxingscene.com/julius-indongo-ready-fight-terence-crawford-broner-too–116890?print_friendly=1