By Bart Barry-
Saturday in Omaha junior welterweight Nebraskan Terence “Bud” Crawford (29-0) spiralsnuffed Californian John Molina (29-6) in the eighth round of their match for Crawford’s 140-pound championship for which only Crawford was eligible. The fight happened on Crawford’s network, HBO, but not along his network’s pay-per-view branch because of how quickly receipts from Bud’s PPV debut got tallied in July – as HBO’s search for someone to rediscover its millionth (or 500,000th) buyer continues along: Not Gennady, nor Terence, nor Andre and Sergey.
Rarely do a prizefighter’s trunks do the work of premonition but Molina’s did with uncanny precision at CenturyLink Center. Molina and his cornermen all wore a garish ensemble covered in question marks of varying shapes and positions, like Halloween store runway models doing The Riddler. There were ?s and ¿s everywhere to ensure no semblance of certainty and that’s how Molina fought, outquestioned and unanswered from the opening bell till he hit the canvas in round 8. Every question about the fight’s quality, beginning with those raised at the Friday weighin when Molina missed weight aggressively, persisted and persist.
Everyone already knew Bud Crawford was special – after all, no one who wasn’t special’d be allowed to fight John Molina on HBO in Nebraska – and nothing Molina brought Saturday undermined anyone’s opinion of Crawford, even if it didn’t genuinely enhance it either. On the roster of happenings that make a fighter lessen in his prime, certainly, poor competition is well well below inactivity, but poor competition still makes the list, and a perusal of Crawford’s opponents since his signature win 30 months ago against Yuriorkis Gamboa should induce a tremor of concern to his handlers. He’s selling tickets in Omaha and that’s great and he’s staying active and that’s still better but he’s staying active against whomever his promoter can get at Black Friday rates and that’s not the same as improving: It’s brand management more than career management.
But there weren’t any cracks in Crawford’s game Saturday, were there?
There were a few, actually, yes.
The main one is his increasingly vaunted footwork, and having your footwork noticed by pundits and commentators and casual fans, come to think of it, might be an alarm every fighter should set going forward – though while we’re treating footwork referee Mark Nelson garners mention of his own as, in the busyness of his inexplicable but unceasing half orbits round the combatants, Nelson spends an absurd amount of time directly behind one fighter or the other, where he can see nothing just before he gets bumped into.
Fighter footwork fascinations go like this: The sort of hyperbolic character who fetishizes handspeed and footwork never praised Juan Manuel Marquez like he celebrated Erislandy Lara – while Marquez’s footwork, Marquez’s everything, was much much better; the type of fan who dizzied himself with glee as Amir Khan dizzied himself with jumping jacks from corner to corner to corner can’t often be found on Twitter hashtagging Roman Gonzalez’s footwork – which is, like everything else Chocolatito does in a prizefighting ring, nigh perfect. Once a fighter’s footwork becomes exaggerated enough for some people to start talking about it, in other words, it’s probably gone from a bit much to a mark of inefficiency to a cause for concern.
But you see Bud Crawford can switch from orthodox to southpaw!
Well gee golly.
Such switching is often a mark of anxiety, a means of stating loudly to one’s opponent you cannot figure him out, and Crawford knows this – which is why he began orthodox till he figured out Molina, which took about a round, and then Crawford went southpaw and stayed that way because Molina held no mysteries and Crawford sells tickets in the Midwest in some part by not being a frilly dude. Crawford used his footwork as a southpaw mostly to keep himself from getting hit by Molina until Molina figured this out, sort of, and started lead-hand corralling (clotheslining really) Crawford about the seventh round, at which point Bud came to a quick realization the show needed closing because however obviously confused Molina was he wasn’t so properly dissuaded as to stop whacking Crawford when given the chance.
Crawford is starting to take three steps where he need only take one, and it’s a mark of his recent competition more than carelessness: Against an equal you worry about fatigue and conserve motion by parrying a cross with your shoulder or ducking a hook, but when you haven’t a fear in the cornfields about what capacity for violence the man across from you bears, you get too cute by half and make disco circles in lieu of L-steps.
When he wants to be, Crawford is among the sport’s best closers, and his triple right hook – head, body, head – thrown after his initial hesitation brought Molina’s left glove off his cheek, was gorgeous a finish as any aficionado has a right to demand. Molina crumpled, and Mark Nelson crumpled on top of him, and one of Top Rank’s guys in a Cowboys jersey somehow decided he needed to be the first to congratulate the victor – which was both unseemly and uncharacteristic of a Top Rank employee. Alas.
Whosoever will Bud fight next? Preferably Manny Pacquiao before he retires again or at least someone whom Antonio DeMarco didn’t stop in 44 seconds 51 months ago.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
