Fans want to know if Terence Crawford will be interested in facing IBF junior middleweight champion Bakhram Murtazaliev in a unification fight following his third-round obliteration of Tim Tszyu last Saturday night at the Caribe Royale in Orlando, Florida.
(Credit: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing)
Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) holds the WBA 154-lb title that he recently won against Israil Madrimov, and he’d planned on fighting WBC/WBO champion Sebastian Fundora. That fight fell off when the WBO permitted Fundora to make a voluntary defense against Errol Spence next.
Will Crawford fight Murtazaliev?
Fans are waiting for Crawford to show some courage by calling out Murtazaliev and putting together what would be a massive unification fight. Casual boxing fans on social media believe that Crawford would easily beat Murtazaliev, but I don’t see it that way.
Crawford is now without an opponent, and fighting Murtazaliev (23-0, 17 KOs) would make the most sense if he were brave enough to fight him. That’s a risky fight for Crawford because Murtazaliev punches as hard, if not harder, than ‘Little GGG’ Madrimov, but he’s more aggressive, throws power shots with both hands, and has a high punch output. In many ways, Murtazaliev is more formidable than Madrimov.
It’s unlikely that Crawford, 37, will agree to fight Murtazaliev because he’s a lot more dangerous than his last opponent, Madrimov, and he barely won that fight earlier this year on August 3rd. Crawford obviously knows that if he fought Murtazaliev, there would be a good chance that he’d get knocked out.
Even if Crawford fought in a safety-first manner, Murtazaliev would catch up to him to knock a few chips off of him. Going 12 rounds against Murtaaliev would be a punishing match, and it wouldn’t matter if Crawford ran the entire night. Murtazaliev would get to him enough to inflict a lot of damage. He’d expose Crawford’s advanced age.
“There’s no evidence that he won’t be avoided again. The only good thing he has is he has a title. So, because he has a title, he can easily stay active, fighting people in the ranks with the IBF and dominating, furthering his fan base and further showing us what he brings to the 154 division, but does Bud want Bakhram? Does Bud take that fight?” said Keith Thurman to Thaboxingvoice, questioning whether Terence Crawford would want to challenge IBF junior middleweight champion Bakhram Murtazaliev.
Sadly, Thurman is right about Murtazaliev likely to be avoided, and Crawford would be one of the many fighters at 154 that wouldn’t want anything to do with him. Crawford still has the hopeless dream of fighting Canelo Alvarez, which is never going to happen. It’s like wishing for the tooth fairy to appear to leave him a dollar under his pillow. That fight is not happening for Crawford in this lifetime. I wish he’d wake up and get a clue already.
Murtazaliev Scaring Away Fighters
“Who really wants it and takes it and says, ‘That’s my next opponent.’ Does Bakhram stay in his IBF lane, defending his title? He says he has to stay in his lane until another door opens up to do another great fight in this division in the world of boxing. But right now, he’s got a lot of us excited,” said Thurman.
Crawford should take the fight against Murtazaliev to show fans that he’s not afraid and work towards the goal of becoming undisputed champion at 154. Fans could respect that because Crawford would stay busy, fighting an available champion and [putting himself in a position to become the undisputed champion if he were to win and then defeat Fundora for the last two belts. If Murtazaliev was an easy mark, Crawford would likely be eager to fight him, but that’s not the case.
