Following his retirement, Terence Crawford is being placed into many fans’ list as one of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters since the turn of the millennium. Now, ‘Bud’ has revealed how he believes he outperformed Floyd Mayweather and Roy Jones Jr.
Crawford defeated Canelo Alvarez back in September in a win that will be referenced for generations, becoming boxing’s second three-division undisputed world champion, 87 years after Henry Armstrong became the first.
Off the back of that career-best triumph, Crawford opted to walk away from the sport whilst he was sat atop it, hanging up the gloves with both an undefeated record after 42 fights and the status of being a five-division world champion.
Reflecting upon his time in the ring, Crawford told The Pivot Podcast of his pride in becoming the undisputed super-lightweight champion back in 2017, and why he feels he’s surpassed Mayweather and Jones Jr.
“I was on a mission. That mindset was, ‘I am not celebrating this fight, because I am trying to get to that fight. That is the fight that I want to get, to show y’all, these are just stepping stones’, to me, in my mind.
“I celebrated being undisputed. That was the greatest feeling ever because nobody did it in so long. I was the third person in the four-belt era to do it, nobody was thinking about or trying to become undisputed.
“I set my sights out, I said that I wanted all the belts. Once I did that, it was like ‘man, Floyd didn’t do this, Pacquiao didn’t do this, what can they say? Roy Jones Jr, my favourite fighter, didn’t do this’.
“I got something over them, that they didn’t do in their career. I’m not saying that they couldn’t have done it, but they didn’t do it.”
The undisputed super-middleweight title has since become fragmented, with Jose Armando Resendiz picking up the WBA strap and Christian Mbilli being elevated to full WBC champion.
Meanwhile, Hamzah Sheeraz is expected to take on 38-year-old Alem Begic in a clash for the WBO super-middleweight title, whilst Osleys Iglesias is set to challenge for the vacant IBF title against an unnamed opponent.