The Los Angeles press conference of the Showtime pay-per-view fight between WBO welterweight world champion, Terence Crawford and the WBA, WBC, and IBF welterweight world champion, Errol Spence Jr., took place today in Beverly Hills, California. For Crawford this was his first time at an event run and promoted by Premier Boxing Champions - something many thought they would never see.
The press conference snuck up on most of us, and though it will probably not be rewatched in ten-to-twenty years it was more notable than one might have thought as both fighters referenced past all-time great when looking at this match-up.
“We had the Sugar Ray Robinson era, we had the era of the Marvin Hagler the Tommy Hearns, and you had the Floyd Mayweather and his era, but on July 29th, I’m going to show each and every one of y’all why this era is the Terence Crawford era," stated Terence Crawford. “We’ll give y’all a gift with the presence of myself and Errol on July 29th. So y’all can witness greatness. There will be greatness on July 29th that you guys will witness, and how do we measure greatness? To us and you guys, we measure greatness by eras."
The usually not very talkative Crawford was borderline boastful in his claims a far cry from some of his later events with former promoter Top Rank Inc in which he seemed indifferent to the fight and the media obligations at large. Crawford seemed interested and more so excited. Crawford was today, the Crawford many of us had hoped to see speak like this for years.
Crawford was brutal with metaphors as he pulled no punches and let it be known that he is going to win this fight making a slew of fishing analogies to illustrate this point.
This guy calls himself the big fish, right," questioned Crawford. "...what do you do when the fish [gets] taken out of the water? You suffocate him."
