LIFE is stranger than fiction, indeed.
Terence Crawford was the underdog and yet, he did not only win but rather, he won convincingly over the heavily-favored Canelo Alvarez.
That was the story of their storied fight on Sunday (Sept. 14, Philippine time) where a record crowd of 70,482 watched Crawford give Alvarez a neat lesson in boxing at the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
Again, the boxer prevailed over the brawler as has happened so monotonously in the past in this brutal business called beak-busting.
The boxer, of course, is the one who could dance so well atop the roped ring, avoiding the brawler’s bombastic blasts like a matador making fun of the bull.
What we had on Sunday was elegance versus extravagance and, naturally, the one with finesse would prevail over brazenness.
Crawford had the hand speed that befuddled Alvarez time and again, complementing that with flexibility in movement both in body and feet that seemed winged.
The result was Crawford, although older by two years at 37, showed more energy and clean work to land 115 of his total 534 punches as against Alvarez’s measly connection of 99 out of 338 shots.
So busy was Crawford that, with his hand speed, he landed 45 jabs as against only 16 by Alvarez.
It was actually Crawford’s jabs that repeatedly blunted Alvarez’s aggression, embellishing it with lateral movements and swift sideward shifts to frustrate the Mexican bull.
Watching Crawford fight is like seeing Floyd Mayweather do his thing: a continuous whir that makes it impossible for anyone to hit him; a graze would be a bonus.
I had also given Crawford a 115-113 win as did judges Tim Cheatham and Max De Luca, with Steve Weisfeld scoring it 116-112, also for Crawford, for the American’s unanimous decision victory.
With the win, Crawford, from Omaha, Nebraska, where the billionaire Warren Buffet was born and who still lives in the same old house not befitting his stature, became the undisputed super-middleweight champion (168 lbs), taking the WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO and Ring Magazine titles of Alvarez.
But, yes, Alvarez (now 62-3-2, win-loss-draw) lost his crown but look at this: he pocketed $100 million (some say $150M) as against a paltry prize of $10M for Crawford (42-0, with 31 knockouts).
The strangeness of life.