It wasn’t a fight, Terence Crawford executed Julius Indongo tonight in Lincoln. It was a third round body shot that did it, but the finish could have come from anywhere. For the first time in eleven years we now have an undisputed, unified champion in boxing. Not a titleholder, but a champion. Oleksandr Gvozdyk and Shakur Stevenson also picked up wins on the main card as well.
Terence Crawford (32-0, 23 KOs) started this fight about as well as he could have. He slightly hurt Julius Indongo (22-1, 11 KOs) in the first with an early power shot, but he has always been a slow starter and was patient for the remainder of the opening round. Crawford hurt Indongo again in the second, this time putting him down hard. Indongo rose quickly which seemed like a mistake, but it was late in the round and he was able to survive.
The Namibian did not survive the third. He came out a little more aggressive, clearly looking to establish himself on some level, but his shots were consistently crude and wide. Crawford ripped underneath one of those wide shots and Indongo collapsed to the canvas. He made no attempt to rise and that was that. Terence Crawford is now the unified, undisputed junior welterweight champion. I imagine he will move up instead of defending, but for one moment in time, we have a real champion. What a performance.
In the co-main event, Oleksandr Gvozdyk (14-0, 12 KOs) stopped Craig Baker (17-2, 13 KOs) in the sixth round on his feet after dropping him hard with a right hand. The Ukrainian controlled the fight right from the start, but it was pretty non-descript along the way until the sudden and exciting finish. The two of them just didn’t have styles that meshed well. Baker was understandably tentative and Gvozdyk needs his opponents to attack a little. Still, Oleksandr was able to land his sharp right hand counters and avoid most of what was coming back en route to a one sided win. He is going to look for a title shot next, but failing that there are other interesting fights like with Artur Beterbiev or Sullivan Barrera to be found as well. Gvozdyk does not need to fight on this level again.
Olympic silver medalist Shakur Stevenson (3-0, 1 KO) opened the broadcast with a six round decision win over Argentinian club fighter David Paz (4-4-1), scoring a fifth round knock down along the way. Stevenson is a major prospect and is clearly a great athlete. He also has an excellent sense of distance, counters well, and is very defensively responsible. What he is not as of yet, however, is particularly exciting. I don’t mean for you and I, fellow boxing nuts, but for the broader audience Top Rank is going to want him to reach. Of course it is early in his career, but he has shown very little power or interest in doing much damage. This is going to make it difficult to grow his star power. It also might really matter eventually against top fighters if nothing changes, but we are a long way from that.
Off television on the WatchESPN.com preliminary broadcast, Mike Reed, Dillian Whyte, Mike Alvarado, and Bryant Jennings all picked up wins in mismatches. All but Reed’s were by stoppage. Of note was that Mike Alvarado looked really terrible, but then turned it around with a knockout of the year candidate. I’ll have more on these Tuesday on Under the Radar Fight Results.
