Terence Crawford was impressed with Ryan Garcia’s win over Oscar Duarte last Saturday night for the most, but he doesn’t see him fighting Shakur Stevenson right now.
Crawford says he didn’t like what he saw of the 25-year-old Ryan when he attempted to use the shoulder roll and turned his back to Duarte in the fight.
Duarte couldn’t help but hit Ryan on the back because that was the only target area he had, but the referee helped Kingry by giving warnings to the Mexican fighter.
That meant that Ryan was able to shutdown Duarte’s offense by turning his back to him, but he had the perfect referee working the fight because he was allowing him to do this.
Ryan (24-1, 20 KOs) said after the fight that wanted to beat WBC lightweight Shakur. It’s debatable whether Ryan was serious because in the same post-fight press conference, he said he wanted to fight Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero, and most believed that’s the guy he’ll face next.
Crawford, who is good friends with Shakur (21-0, 10 KOs), doubts that Ryan will fight him at this time, and he feels that few would want to mess with the 26-year-old three-division world champion.
Ryan Garcia won’t fight Shakur
“He’s not going to fight Shakur. Ryan is a good kid, but I just don’t see him fighting Shakur,” said Terence Crawford to Fighthype when told that Ryan Garcia called out Shakur Stevenson last Saturday night after his win over Oscar Duarte.
Ryan definitely isn’t going to fight Shakur Stevenson because he seems more interested in keeping the money rolling in, and losing to that guy would mess up things.
It’s unlikely that they’ll ever fight unless Shakur becomes a big PPV attraction one of these days, and given his boring fighting style, that’s unlikely to happen because he won’t get the fights he needs to become a star.
“I watched the fight. He did good. He made some key adjustments in the fight from standing there in front of the dude, the moving and picking his shots,” said Crawford about Ryan Garcia’s performance against Duarte.
“I didn’t like him turning like that. I didn’t like that,” said Crawford on whether he was impressed by the shoulder roll that Ryan used in his fight last night. “Like I said, he made some key adjustments to lead him to victory, and congratulations to Ryan.
The back-turning bit worked for Ryan because the referee allowed him to do this, and he also let him stiff-arm Duarte like a football running back would do. Ryan was getting away with murder in terms of gaining the advantage of using tactics that quality referees would allow him to do. He had the perfect referee working the fight last night.
“I said Ryan wouldn’t take that fight [with Shakur] right now. It’s Shakur against anybody in the [lightweight] division right now. I don’t think nobody wants to see Shakur right now in his division,” said Crawford.
What Crawford didn’t say is that because of Shakur’s defensive style involving a lot of running & holding, he’s going to be ignored & avoided by top fighters for years, possibly until he ages, loses his speed, and is forced to stand and trade.
That’s the sad part. Top fighters don’t like fighting runners, so Shakur may languish as the WBC champion.
Crawford praises Shakur’s recent performance
“You can say whatever you want. You can say he’s boring. You can say he don’t punch. You can say all these things about him, but I don’t see nobody eager to get in the ring with him,” said Crawford about the 26-year-old WBC lightweight champion Stevenson.
Crawford is right. Fighters won’t want to fight Shakur, but that’s not a good thing for him. If he can’t get the fights he needs, he won’t be a star, and he won’t be a PPV attraction. He’ll just be another avoided runner in the sport with no fan base.
“All in all, he [Shakur] got the job done, and to me, he looked good doing it. He did set a record for least punches in a twelve round fight landed on him,” said Crawford.
Terence was referring to the 40 punches that Edwin De Los Santos landed against Shakur in their fight on November 16th last month, but he failed to mention that Stevenson landed just 65 himself, which is a pitifully low number for a 12 round fight.
“Yeah, he wasn’t getting hit. Boxing is called boxing for a reason. It’s hit and not get hit. So he [Shakur] mastered that, and I’m proud of him and on to the next,” said Crawford.
