By Ian S Palmer
Unbeaten WBC and WBO Super Lightweight Champion Terence Crawford of America will be putting his titles on the line against undefeated WBA and Champion Julius Indongo of Namibia at the Pinnacle bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska on Saturday, August 19th. The winner will be the unified champion and the first man to hold the WBA, WBC, WBO and IBF titles in any division in 12 years. Crawford’s last fight was on May 20th when he stopped Felix Diaz after the 10th round. Indongo won his WBA belt by beating Ricky Burns by unanimous decision in April. The bout can be seen live in the U.S. on ESPN while UK fans can catch the action on Sky Sports and Canadian fans can tune into Super Channel.
The 29-year-old former lightweight champion Crawford enters the ring with a perfect record of 31-0 with 22 Kos. He possesses excellent foot and hand speed and better-than-average power. He’s an accurate puncher who sometimes changes to southpaw and owns a solid chin, but sometimes gets off to a slow start. Basically, Crawford is the total package and is considered as one boxing brightest stars. He could eventually move up to the welterweight division at 147 lbs, but can’t look past Indongo. Crawford stands 5-feet-8-inches tall with a 70-inch reach and has boxed 165 rounds since turning pro in 2008.
Crawford also owns wins over the likes of Thomas Dulorme, Raymundo Beltran, Dierry Jean, Hank Lundy, Breidis Prescott, Ricky Burns and Yuriorkis Gamboa and his current knockout ratio stands at 71 per cent. He beat Dulorme by sixth-round stoppage for the vacant WBO title in April of 2015. He’s defended the WBO title five times and the WBC crown three times twice after winning it from Viktor Postol by unanimous decision in July of 2016. Crawford usually improves as the fight goes on and he’s comfortable in both a boxing match and a slugfest.
The 34-year-old Indongo won the IBF and IBO belts with a first-round knockout of Eduard Troyanovsky in December of 2016. He’s a southpaw with a perfect record of 22-0 with 11 Kos. He’s stands just over 5-foot-10-inches tall with a 71.5-inch reach, so has a two-and-a-half inch advantage over Crawford in height and a slight one-and-a-half-inch reach edge. Indongo turned pro in 2009 and has boxed 125 rounds since then. However, he’s fought lower level opponents when compared to Crawford. The only names casual fans may recognize on his resume are Burns and is Kaizer Mabuza.
Prediction…
Indongo has pretty good power, but isn’t really a knockout artist. Actually, neither is Crawford really even though he’s stopped 22 of his 31 opponents. It’s hard to imagine Indongo outboxing Crawford and it’s just as hard to imagine stopping him as well. Crawford can be hit, but he’s shown a solid chin so far. Indongo might have his moments in the fight, but will fall short in his attempt to become the unified champ. Crawford will be happy with a decision, but a late stoppage is possible.
