Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford has never enjoyed the recognition he deserved. It is true that he lacked greater activity in the ring to be a fighter who was on everyone’s lips, such as Canelo Alvarez, and never exploited his image as other great boxers have done. In any case, the new super middleweight champion is close to turning 38 years old and his career is already closer to its end.
On the way, he has been eliminating all his rivals. He has been doing it since he was seven years old when he was recruited to train in a gym in his neighborhood, specifically at the CW Boxing Club in North Omaha, where he was guided by Midge Minor. His mentor used to invite the little ones to try to free them from the hardships of the harsh street life and quickly found in Terence a young man with a gift for pugilism. In 2008, Crawford’s amateur career reached its peak when he won several tournaments prior to the Olympic Games, but he did not qualify for the Beijing Games, although he was the main American candidate in the lightweight category. He turned professional immediately
Today, he is a champion in five weight categories, which is unusual, and his place in boxing history is already being discussed. According to his former promoter, Bob Arum, he was the successor to Sugar Ray Leonard. Personally, Bud has seven children and explained in a documentary broadcast by Netflix, prior to the fight with Canelo, that family was the reason why he fought so infrequently. Although he never stops training hard, he wanted to spend more time with his children.
Shooting after a dispute
When Bud fights, he is usually reminded of the incident that almost ended his life. He had just made his professional debut and his career was almost derailed. “I got shot in the head in 2008, after playing dice. The bullet bounced off my skull and fell off,” he said. It happened while he was counting the money he had won and, luckily for him, the speed of the projectile was “cushioned” by the “thick glass” of his vehicle and did not pierce his head. “I drove to the hospital, I wasn’t going to sit there,” he said
Raised among gangs and expelled from every school he entered, he focused even more on boxing after that incident. However, after that episode, something drastic crossed his mind: “I was furious, I didn’t think about anything but revenge. I wanted to find the guy and kill him. Then I realized that it didn’t do me any good, so I focused on boxing.” After a visit to Rwanda with a former teacher of his, he opened a free gym, the B&B Boxing Academy, in the neighborhood where he grew up.
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