On August 3 at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles, Terence Crawford makes his long-awaited return to the ring when he aims to become a four-weight world champion against WBA super-welterweight title holder Israil Madrimov.
Crawford (40-0-0 31 KO) will compete at 154lbs for the first time in the headline bout of a stacked card on Riyadh Season’s international debut. His return in California will be his first fight since last July when he dominated Errol Spence Jr to become the undisputed welterweight champion. It made Crawford the first male two-weight undisputed champion having previously achieved the feat at super-lightweight.
Naoya Inoue (bantamweight and super-bantamweight) and Oleksandr Usyk (cruiserweight and heavyweight) have since emulated Crawford, but ‘Bud’ will hope to strike out on his own and become a three-weight undisputed champion.
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The first step on that journey is Madrimov (10-0-1 7 KO). A victory will not only earn Crawford the Uzbek’s WBA title but also the WBO interim belt, setting up the American for a shot at WBO world champion Sebastian Fundora, who also holds the WBC strap.
It means that, potentially, within two fights Crawford could be the unified super-welterweight champion, with only the IBF title, currently held by Bakhram Murtazaliev, out of his possession.
Given Crawford’s status as arguably the best pound-for-pound boxer on the planet and the history that awaits him should he carve through the 154lbs division, it’s no surprise much of the attention ahead of August 3 is focused on the Nebraskan.
However, Madrimov is not a fighter to be taken lightly, and while Bud is the strong favorite to win (bookmakers have priced him at around 1/7 for victory), the unbeaten Uzbek will not want to give up his title in his first defense.
So, with the odds stacked against him and facing perhaps the finest fighter of his generation, what can Madrimov do to emerge victorious and shock the world?
It’s no secret that Crawford has not fought as much as he would’ve liked in recent years, and several failed negotiations over the past 12 months mean it will be more than one year since his last bout against Spence.
Going back to December 2019 and his bout against Egidijus Kavaliauskas, Crawford has averaged one fight per year for the past five years: Kell Brook (November 2020), Shawn Porter (November 2021), David Avanesyan (December 2022), and Spence (July 2023).
So far, that lack of activity has had minimal effect on Crawford, who secured stoppage wins over all these opponents, but could there come a time when ring rust might set in? As he approaches his 37th birthday in September and with a step up to his heaviest weight yet, it might prove to be a factor against Madrimov.
The Uzbek has hardly been particularly active himself, with four fights dating back to December 2021, but at least his most recent outing was in March when he produced the best performance of his career so far to stop Magomed Kurbanov and become a world champion.
Madrimov will hope his better sharpness and greater experience at 154 can give him a couple of advantages against a superior opponent in Crawford.
Crawford might be the most complete fighter on the planet. Speed, power, movement, intelligence, with long arms that give him range – the American has it all, plus no one can control a fight better than Bud. There have been 40 opponents who have all tried and failed to find a solution.
Such is Crawford’s brilliance, he’s often allowed to fight on his own terms and at his own tempo, placing his opponents in survival mode and unable to execute their game plans.
To avoid a similar fate, Madrimov will need to rely on his own strengths, of which there are plenty. The Uzbek is a powerful and accurate puncher who has a solid defense – thanks to his stellar amateur background – and like Crawford, has excellent footwork.
At 29 years old, he also has youth on his side, while he is full of self-belief and is genuinely convinced that he will be the man to inflict a first career defeat on Crawford.
“Experience-wise, yes, I have ten professional fights, but it’s a high quality. All ten were WBA fights. All ten were twelve-rounders against stiff opposition. I have more than 200 international amateur fights. So overall, over 300 amateur fights. I have experience fighting everyone around the world,” Madrimov said.
“The ring will show everything. On August 3, you will see everything. We have some things we’ve been watching. We’re not going to talk about it right now. With a lot of fighters, they’re losing before they even step in the ring [with Crawford]. They’re already kind of on the downside [of their careers]. With me, I’m mentally strong.”
Make no mistake, Madrimov will be a massive underdog when he climbs through the ropes to face Crawford on August 3, but as the saying goes, every boxer has a puncher’s chance.
For that to generally apply, though, a boxer needs to possess the necessary power to administer that one, fight-changing punch – and Madrimov certainly has that.
Even with a fighter as skillful and imposing as Crawford, a clean shot to the temple or ripping punch to the liver has the potential to send him to the canvas. It’s not happened yet – Bud has famously never gone down – but at 154 against arguably the biggest puncher he’s faced, there remains an outside possibility that one clean shot could change the outcome of the bout.
“Madrimov is the best 154-pounder in the world, I really believe that,” Madrimov’s promoter Eddie Hearn said. “Terence came straight out the gate and he wanted all the champions. His Excellency (Turki Alalshikh) reached out to me. We made the fight, the main event on a huge card but as I said to him, ‘Every fighter gets old, every fighter steps [up] one weight class too many’.”
