Speaker 1: Well, it is my big pleasure to be joined on
our podcast by the one and only four division world champion,
one of the great count for pound fighters, a boxing pick,
Terrence Budd Crawford. But it's really a pleasure to have
you a lot here. I know you have a very
big fight coming up, probably the biggest of your career.
You gonna be challenging the undisputed super middleweight world champion
Canelo Alvarez for that title. Will take place on September
thirteenth at Allegiance Stadium, their first ever stadium fight in
Las Vegas. Tickets are on sale. The fight is for
all subscribers on Netflix. A beautiful thing for fight fans. Welcome.
And I wanted to start off Terrence, because this fight
is sort of taken on a life of its own.
Speaker 2: I think among boxing.
Speaker 1: Fans, after you dominated and knocked out Errol Spence, I
wonder at what point did like this become the focus
of your goal of it to land this fight against
Canelo Alvarez. At what point did you say I want
that guy?
Speaker 3: Well, this is this is the biggest fight to be
made and boxing out of all the divisions, you know,
Terrence Crawford versus Canelo.
Speaker 4: You know, it don't get no bigger than that.
Speaker 3: So that was a fight that I looked at, looked
into and said that could happen, you know, given the
likes that Jamail Charlo was able to go up and
you know from one point fifty four and get the opportunity.
I felt like I was able to should be able
to get the opportunity as well.
Speaker 1: So he wasn't really that into it when this when
you first started to talk about it and it kind
of became a thing on social media. You know, he
was asked about it many times. I asked him out.
He was like, yeah, I'm not really interested in that fight.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And obviously now the fight is happening, So I wonder
how how did you get Turkey to get into the
fight and how did you I feel like, you basically
will this fight into being?
Speaker 2: How do you feel like that happened? Like what changed?
Speaker 1: Obviously a lot of money for him, but in getting
it done it become reality.
Speaker 3: Well, I think just me being serious about it, you know,
at first, you know, Turkey felt as if I should
fight somebody at one fifty four and you know, go
to try to become undisputed at one fifty four. But
those great those guys at one fifty four didn't really
too much do none for me or my career, So
why not go up and challenge myself and you know,
fight another all time great in Canila.
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm big into like the history of boxing,
besides just following current boxing. And I look at the
matchup a bud and I see, if you win, you
become a five division world champion, which is certainly a
huge deal, and there's not a lot of guys that
I've ever done that. But what I look at is
that if you win, you become a four division lineal champion.
You did it at lightweight, you did it at junior
welter weight, you did it obviously at welterweight, and you
won a title at one fifty four, but it wasn't
considered the lineal title. If you be Yellow Alvarez and
you take away the super middleweight under be the title,
that'll be a fourth lineal championship.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: There are only two other fighters in the history of
boxing that have accomplished that. That are those guys are
Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacia. And I wonder in your
from your perspective, What would that mean to you to
join that is extraordinary elite company?
Speaker 3: Well man, dang, you know, like you know, those are
the two you know, uh, two great fighters that you
know ever laced up a pair of gloves. So to
be in a category with just them two and myself,
it would be, you know, something crazy to even think about.
You know, it's crazy to even think about it right now,
because did you know that it was funny because we
was talking about it yesterday.
Speaker 4: Okay, you know, we was talking about it yesterday.
Speaker 3: And and it just was just like, dang, I can
make history, you know, as as as well as becoming
a three time undisputed you know, champion in three different
weight classes. You know, there's a lot riding on this
fight for me, you know, And yeah, of course you know,
and we're looking forward to it now.
Speaker 1: When I watched you and h and Canelo do your
your press conferences in Riad and then you went to
New York City or Las Vegas, uh there, there's clearly,
at least the way I look, and I've watched a
lot of press conferences, clearly very healthy respect between the
two of you. You respect his accomplishments. I know he
respects your accomplishments, and uh, there's been some friendliness, but
there's also been a little chippiness, which is good for
any promotion.
Speaker 2: Especially.
Speaker 1: He seemed to downplay your resume in various interviews and
at the press conferences. How much does that irritate you
because you you've accomplished a lot of the same things
he's done with, you know, championships and four weight classes,
multiple undisputed titles of that type of thing.
Speaker 3: Well, it definitely irritated me because I can say so
much about you know, his resume and the guys he
fought at the time he fought and so forth.
Speaker 4: But I'm not going to do that, you know.
Speaker 3: I'd rather, you know, talk about him as a fighter
and forget all the other people that he fought before me,
because you know, at the end of the day, that
don't matter.
Speaker 4: Me and him got a fight.
Speaker 3: I'm not fighting his resume, I'm not fighting the guys
that he fought, none of that.
Speaker 4: So I'd rather keep it straight about Canelo.
Speaker 1: Talk to me a little bit about the process to
the reshape your body. I mean, you obviously came into
the pros. Your first title was that lightweight. Now you're
going to be more than thirty pounds in terms of
the limit above that. You've looked good, I mean size
wise when I saw you at the press conversations and
that sort of thing. What is the process like to
build yourself up to a solid one hundred and sixty
eight pounder or close to it? Because you've only had
the one fight even at one fifty four that was
your win against Matchamuv in August of last year.
Speaker 3: Well, I think just you know, uh, not having to
cut muscle, I have to worry about making weight and
struggle and things like that.
Speaker 4: I think. You know, as you.
Speaker 3: Get older, your body naturally grows, you know, but if
you're not letting it grow, because your body want to grow,
especially when you work out a lot, you know, but
you're hindering it to grow.
Speaker 4: The time that you do, let it do what it do.
Speaker 3: You know, This is the the this part of the
process that we have.
Speaker 1: What I wonder, though, is there special things you're I
wonder is your special stuff you're doing. I give you
an example when Hopkins moved up from middleweight to light heavyweight. Okay,
he went way above the win and then cut down
to one seventy five you're not doing anything like that.
Speaker 3: No, no, not at all, not at all. So we
definitely eat more, you know, we definitely eat more. We
we're definitely trying to put pack you know, more muscle,
but not too much muscle.
Speaker 1: So so when when the fight comes about, and I
think back, we mentioned many Packett with other lineal titles.
When he went up and fought at junior middleweight against
Antonio Margarito, he came in way under the contract limit.
Contract limit for the fifty four pound title was like
one hundred and fifty for that fight, but he came
in barely over one hundred and forty four pounds. Is
your intention to bulke all the way up to one
sixty eight or is it to maybe come in a
little bit under to maintain the great speed that Terren
Scofford has.
Speaker 4: I don't know. We shall see.
Speaker 3: We got we gotta you know, a little bit under
too much to figure that out, and then you know,
we'll make the best solution for fine not I.
Speaker 1: Want to also ask you, Terrence, about the fact that
this fight's on Netflix, not a pay per view searcharge,
if you subscribe to Netflix the way people would subscribe
to other things, and they just watch it as part
of their regular subscription. That seems to me anyway, as
a boxing fan, that's an awesome thing to have a
fight of this magnitude, a fight of this high qual
the caliber, historical, all the things we can discussed about
it that it is not an extra search charge. I
wonder your perspective because you've had a few pay per
view fights, obviously you had the Arrow Spence was your
big one on pay per view. But what do you
think is that how good it is or your perspective,
how is available to the masses with them out without
having to pay extra money for it, but you guys
still getting daid a lot of money.
Speaker 4: Well, I think it's going to be great. You know.
Speaker 3: I think boxing is moving towards, you know, moving away
from pay per view, and I think it's a good
thing because a lot of people, you know, with the
piracy and stelling fights and things like that, I think
that's you know, killed the pay per view.
Speaker 4: So, you know, I think giving it to the.
Speaker 3: Masses that have the app and things like that will
be the next beg sting for not only the fans,
but for the for the sport of boxing. You know,
when you look at the bigger sport. You know, I
won't say bigger sports, I'll say to other sports, right
like NBA, NFL Day on Prime TV, you know where
you know you don't have to pay a subscription or
pay for a pay per view to see them play.
I think, you know, if we can get back to that,
I think boxing would be, you know, back where it
used to be back in the day.
Speaker 1: Well, certainly it seems to be working in those little
spots at Netflix's pick to do its thing because they
had huge audience for their Jake Paul Mike Tyson event.
They had record type of audience for women's sports when
they did the recent Katie Taylor and Amanda Toronto. So
having you guys, you know, it was going to be
a huge thing for them. When I was looking over
your record, just sort of refresh myself, I realized, you know,
you've only had a one fight for the last per year,
you know, between twenty twenty and twenty twenty four, one
fight per year. And I wonder, is that by designed
for you or is that a matter of like you
just decided I'm going to be a once a year fighter.
I'm making good money. I'll pick my spots or were
you Were you preferring to be a little more active.
Speaker 4: Well, I would definitely.
Speaker 3: I would have liked to fight fight more and would
have been more active, But given the circumstances that I
had with my contract and then the circumstances with Spence,
we had a rematch clause and that was dragged out
for a year, and then it turned out that the
rematch wasn't gonna happen. Then trying to get an opponent,
then fighting you know, Magic Mov because I was trying
to fight front Door and they didn't want to fight
me then, so I had to go to Plan B
and figure out who I was gonna fight, and then
you know, we end up fighting Magicum Often after that,
it wasn't it wasn't really nothing for me, you know,
so we were just still working on a Canelo fight.
So now we're here and you know, we're gonna be
ready for it.
Speaker 1: It turned thirty eight years old two weeks after the fight.
You're you're actually older than him, even though he's got
a lot more fights than you. This is gonna be
by far your biggest fight in terms of the profile,
what it could do for your legacy with the victory, certainly,
I would imagine your bank account. Uh so, and he's
not getting any younger either, And I sort of think about, like,
is this sort of the end game if you will?
Do you do you think about retirement when this is over,
whatever the outcome is, or are there more fights left
in Terrence Scrawford.
Speaker 3: Oh man, this this is definitely a question that everybody
keep asking. Not tell him all the same thing. You know,
we don't know, you know, one fight at a time.
Let's see how this fight go. Maybe you know, I'll
go back down on one fifty four and try to
become undisputed. Maybe I love to do a rematch. Who knows,
you know. Right now, we just focus on the task
at hand. And that's Canela well understood.
Speaker 1: I said a couple more questions for you, Bud, and
that is uh In terms of Canelo, I look at it,
and even though we all know he's a great he
really hasn't had what I think people would view as
a really impressive performance since twenty twenty one. That's when
he knocked out Kayleb Plant to become the undisputed champion
at one sixty eight four the first time. And you know,
he's still been winning most of his fights. He did
have the loss that light heavyweight to Dimitri Biebel. But
I look more in particular to the last fight he
had in May against William Skull, through barely any punches,
was not able to put on any kind of hurt
on William Scull whatsoever in that fight. It was a
dreadful fight. On top of that, and being honest, as
much as I love Canela look pretty bad in that fight,
And I wonder when you look at that performance, If
you have looked at that performance, what is your view
about what he has left? Or maybe was he just
disinterested for whatever reason? Because Skull wasn't a big name.
The fight was at six thirty in the morning, you
know in Saudi Arabia, where maybe people were a little
sleepy and so it didn't have that kind of crowd enthusiasm.
What's your take on that he's got By the way,
I'll mention this as an amazing stat. I mean, even
though you're older than he is, he has five hundred
and twenty pro rounds, more than double, which is two
hundred and forty five.
Speaker 3: I think I think it was just him being frustrated
because Skull went and fight to fight day. He wanted
to fight, and you know he was just either irritated
or bored. I just think styles made fights at the
end of the day.
Speaker 2: All right, Just I'll wrap up with this.
Speaker 1: I know, having covered your career for a very long time,
you're always confident going into your fights. I know you
have the full expectation to be the winner of this fight.
He has never been knocked down in his career. He
has never been stopped. Before you fought Magic of you
had stopped eleven opponents in a row. Granted they were
in the smaller weight classes. But I'm wondering, is it
do you think about when you look at the fight
and the way you feel that will unfold it is
a knockout, which would be an amazing feat for you.
Speaker 2: Is that something that you even think about getting in this.
Speaker 3: Buddy, I gotta knock him out. I just got to
beat him. You know, everybody getting hyped on a knockout.
Speaker 2: I'm not hyped on it. I'm just wondering, I understand.
Speaker 3: But I don't never go on none of my fights
looking for a knockout. You know, if it come to come,
if it don't, you know, as long as I get
the victory.
Speaker 4: That's all that matters.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I will look forward to watching your
efforts and getting that victory begging pulled off. Darrence, I
appreciate your time and I really wish you a lot
of good luck in the fight.
Speaker 2: September thirteen, so