Regis Prograis couldn’t help but be impressed by Terence Crawford’s latest performance inside the ring.
The 140-pound WBC champion in New Orleans praised the WBO champion from Omaha, Nebraska after he beat David Avanesyan in six round last month.
Crawford displayed a methodical performance in the beginning, slowly breaking down Avanesyan, a Russian-born, UK based contender, before stopping him with a counter-right hook. Avanesyan lay flat on his stomach and motionless for several moments after the shot.
“He’s cerebral, bro,” Prograis, who was ringside for Crawford-Avanesyan, told FightHubTV. “Like I said, he’s a chess player. He’s just setting you up with things and at the same time he got power. That’s kind of hard to beat.
“He change up—he got a lot of different variations. He is always changing up what he does. He’ll change it up not just style-wise but he’ll change it up speed-wise, and he’ll change it up power-wise. You just don’t know. People get knocked out with the shots they don’t see coming, with the shots they don’t expect.”
“If you’re hitting somebody and you’re touching them and you touching and then you speed up a little bit and then you touch them again and then you hit ’em with a hard one, it just surprise you and that’s kind of what he doing, that’s kind of his style. He just break you down, not only physically but he break you down mentally.”
Crawford-Avanesyan was not the fight boxing fans wanted to see end this year. Many were eager to see him face WBA, WBC champion Errol Spence Jr. However, negotiations between the two ended in a stalemate that led Crawford to seek a fight against Avanesyan. In the coming months, Spence will fight Keith Thurman.
Prograis, a Houston resident and trainer, just won the WBC 140-pound title after he beat Jose Zepeda in the 11th round.