Terence Crawford takes out Errol Spence Jr., lays claim to being best boxer on the planet

The coronation of Terence “Bud” Crawford as the best boxer on the planet was in full effect Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. As the boxing legend set the tone of the night with an epic ring walk made by Crawford and rapping legend Eminem.

“Las Vegas, make some noise for the next undisputed welterweight champion of the world, Terence ‘Bud’ f**king Crawford!” Eminem yelled to the roaring crowd.

Crawford gave the 19,990 in attendance a performance they won’t soon forget while grabbing the IBF, WBA and WBC 147-pound titles to go along with his WBO belt. He become the first undisputed welterweight champion in the four-belt era in boxing history. Even more impressive, with the historic performance, Crawford is the first male boxer to become undisputed champion in two-weight classes in the four-belt era, joining women’s pound-for-pound queen Claressa Shields as the only people to ever do it in boxing history.

“It means everything because of who I took the belts from. They tried to blackball me. They kept me out. They talked bad about me,” Crawford said post-fight.

“They said I wasn’t good enough and I couldn’t beat these welterweights. I just kept my head to the sky and kept praying to God that I would get the opportunity to show the world how great Terence Crawford is. Tonight, I believe I showed how great I am.”

How Terence Crawford dismantled Errol Spence Jr.

The night was truly about the greatness of Crawford who put on the best performance of his Hall of Fame career to destroy former unified welterweight champion Errol “The Truth” Spence Jr. with a power jab that landed 60 percent of the time, and a precise counter game that gave Spence all he wanted. Crawford won every round of the fight, except maybe the first round, on most ringside observers’ scorecards.

The new pound-for-pound undisputed king floored Spence in Round 2 and twice in Round 7, which was the first knock downs of the former champion’s career.

“The first was more of a flash knockdown. I caught him with the left, and he didn’t think I was coming back with the right,” Crawford said.

“On the second knockdown, I caught him with an uppercut that he didn’t see coming in, and then I followed up with a right hook to the ear. It knocked his equilibrium off. The last time I caught him with a double hook to the ear and he went down.”

What’s next for Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.?

What’s next for Crawford and Spence is anyone’s guess as both fighters could move up to the 154-pound super welterweight class for new challenges or simply run it back. Spence owns a rematch clause and a rematch could happen before the end of 2023.

“We gotta do it again. I’m going to be a lot better. It’ll be a lot closer,” Spence said. “It’ll probably be in December at the end of the year. I say we gotta do it again. Hopefully, it will happen at 154 (pounds).”

Regardless of if they ever get back in the ring together or not, one thing is for certain, Saturday night, we witnessed an all-time great fighter put on a historic performance against a future Hall of Fame fighter. Both Spence and Crawford dared to be great, and Crawford simply was the better fighter on the worst night of Spence’s illustrious career.

“Like I said before, I only dreamed of being a world champion. I’m an overachiever,” Crawford said.

“Nobody believed in me when I was coming up, but I made everybody a believer. I want to thank Spence and his team because without him none of this would have been possible.”

Terence Crawford TKOs Errol Spence Jr. Full Recap and Highlights