WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford (39-0, 30 KOs) stopped #6 David Avanesyan (29-4-1, 17 KOs) within the sixth spherical on Saturday night time of their headliner on BLK Prime pay-per-view on the CHI Well being Middle in Omaha, Nebraska.
In rounds one by 4, Avanesyan was hitting Crawford with photographs that might have knocked out a lot of his opponents, however he took them nicely and didn’t fold.
Avanesyan landed clear photographs that snapped Crawford’s head sideways repeatedly. This author can’t bear in mind seeing Crawford get hit as usually as he did tonight.
Wanting slower than regular, the 35-year-old Crawford flattened Avanesyan with a single left hand to the pinnacle within the sixth spherical.
It was a great shot, however Crawford had a stationary man in entrance of him along with his gloves pinned to his head. Avanesyan was large open for Crawford to load up along with his left hand on the time. The time of the stoppage was at 2:14 of the sixth spherical.
Crawford obtained hit quite a bit within the combat by the heavy photographs from Avanesyan, and this was not the crawfish that we’d identified from his greatest years.
Age and inactivity confirmed tonight with Crawford. He was getting hit with photographs from Avanesyan that may have been knockout blows had they been thrown by Errol Spence Jr and Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis.
The combat resembled an exhibition match, as Crawford and Avanesyan gave the impression to be each combating at a sluggish heavyweight tempo somewhat than what one is accustomed to seeing from elite welterweights.
It’s onerous to know if Crawford purposefully stayed in 1st gear as a result of he’s getting $10 million+ for the combat, and he didn’t wish to knock out Avanesyan too rapidly to present followers their cash’s value.
Earlier tonight, ESPN reported that negotiations between Crawford and Errol Spence Jr are anticipated to proceed for a combat between them in 2023. We’ll see how that goes. If Crawford insists on the identical issues he did within the earlier negotiations, there may very well be issues.
What might damage Crawford’s probabilities for a combat with Spence is that if the pay-per-view numbers are low for right this moment’s match with Avanesyan. If the numbers are too low, Crawford gained’t have something to discount with apart from his WBO title.
The informal boxing followers aren’t conversant in Crawford, so Spence gained’t achieve a lot combating him aside from the chance to turn out to be the undisputed welterweight champion.