Jeff Mayweather is leaning towards Terence Crawford defeating Tim Tszyu when or if the two fight.
He feels that Crawford is on a different level talent-wise than WBO junior middleweight champion Tszyu (24-0, 17 KOs), but he still feels it won’t be an easy fight for the 36-year-old.
Crawford doesn’t fight very often anymore, and he’s not faced a 100% fighter who was still young since his win over Jose Benavidez Jr. in 2018, but that guy was a former 140-pounder, and their fight came just two years after he’d been shot in the leg.
Terence will be coming off a likely one-year layoff when he faces the winner of this Saturday’s match between Tszyu and Sebastian Fundora (20-1-1, 20 KOs).
That’s not ideal for Crawford, but he doesn’t fight that often anymore, choosing to wait for big payday fights rather than staying busy with smaller money-contests.
It could work against Crawford if he’s ring-rusty or if he fails to make it out of training camp without suffering an injury due to his inactivity like we saw with Keith Thurman, who is younger than him at 35. Thurman is considered old.
“I would lean towards Crawford. I wouldn’t say it’s going to be a walk in the park for him,” said Jeff Mayweather to the Jai McAllister YouTube channel, picking Terence Crawford to defeat Tim Tszyu if the two fight.
It’s going to be interesting to see if Crawford can perform the way he did in his last fight against Errol Spence Jr. when he returns to the ring. That was one of Crawford’s best performances of his career, as he hadn’t looked that good in his fights against David Avanesyan, Shawn Porter, and Egidijus Kavaliauskas.
It could be that Spence’s condition for that fight made Crawford appear better than he would have if he’d fought someone who wasn’t ring-rusty from a year layoff, weight drained and damaged from two car crashes.
“Against Crawford, that’s different. That’s a whole other beast. That’s a fight that would show the boxing world what Tim has to offer. To add to his legacy. That’s why he wants to fight Tim Tszyu,” said Jeff.
“Plus, he [Crawford] couldn’t get the Canelo fight. He was trying as hard as he could to get Canelo, and that’s not happening. Since it’s not going to happen, you got to take what’s out there,” said Jeff.
