*Folks let me begin this by saying that I have been coming to Las Vegas for so many fights since Roberto Duran went against Wilfred Benitez in January ’82 at Ceasar’s Palace and I have to be quite honest with you there was something special about this fight. As I arrived in the middle of Crawford vs Spence fight week the temperature was hitting 114 and we’re talking about in a dry desert heat that if you touched the hand rails of the outside escalators too long you would be in trouble.
This fight was being hailed as the one that would crown the new pound-for-pound champion with two of the best welterweights in the world coming together to claim that title.
When I attended the final press conference on Thursday I could feel the atmosphere and the crowd in the T Mobile Arena everyone was excited about what was taking place as the two gladiators both came on stage to make their final pitch to the world and little that we knew there was some drama taking place backstage between Jermall Charlo and Caleb Plant that apparently didn’t explode until the next day Friday right after the weight in when Plant sucker punched Charlo in the mouth.
The thing that I was hoping wouldn’t happen with so many black people coming into town from nearly every state in the country was that there would be no drama outside the ring. But back to fight week on Thursday night the president of the World Boxing Council, Mauricio Sulaiman, had several of us over to Wolfgang Puck’s at the MGM Grand for dinner where I was given permission to exhibit my art of Crawford and Spence thanks to my favorite Jewish friend longtime boxing publicist Bill Caplan. The food was great as always and to be around so many people who were writers, photographers, commentators, publicists, and television producers who were all coming together to break some bread, was such a thrill.
This was one of the most exciting weeks I had the pleasure of being a part of and to be capped off with a most memorable fight on Saturday night was a blast. And speaking of the fight, this one has to go down as the FIGHT OF THE YEAR folks as you had every star in sports and entertainment that you could lay eyes on in attendance … from Judge Mathis to Draymond Green, Eminem, Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather, Evander Holifield, Mike Tyson, “Earthquake” and so many others all came to see Terence “Bud” Crawford who held the WBO title go against Eroll Spence Jr, who held the WBC, IBF, and WBA belts in a battle that would see Crawford become the undisputed welterweight champion and pound for pound Ring Magazine champion.
From the opening bell you just knew that something special was about to take place as both guys began to feel each other out but in round two Crawford saw an opening and dropped Spence with a hook and after that, it was all downhill for him (Spence). Meanwhile, his trainer didn’t have any answers throughout the rest of the fight as he got dropped twice more in the seventh. He was able to survive the eighth round but going into round nine he began to take too much punishment from Crawford and the referee stepped in and called a halt to the bout.
Folks, I got to tell you something it is my opinion that nobody is going to beat Terence “Bud” Crawford he is something special in the sport right now and I hear that there’s talk that Manny Pacquiao wants to call him out well all I can say to that is that he and whoever else is interested they better come correct because he ain’t no joke.
Mohammed Mubarak can be reached at [email protected] for your comments. He is an artist as well and you can view his works at mubarakart.com at qmubarak06 on Instagram
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