HISTORY MIGHT SUGGEST THAT TERENCE CRAWFOR D IS FACING AN UNLIKELY WIN — BUT GUESS HOW MUCH CRAWFORD CARES ABOUT THAT SUGGESTION By Corey Erdman The Contrarian I t’s hard to get boxing fans to agree on much of anything; by nature, they can be as diverse and combative as the athletes they watch in the ring. Reasonable people disagree on the daily when it comes to the talent level of a given fighter or the difficulty of a given fight. But one thing observers seem to universally understand is that moving up in weight successfully is both a difficult and impressive thing to do. Boxing as a sport provides more room for subjectivity than almost any other. Provided a fighter isn’t knocked out, scorecards are simply a subjective view of three neutral observers, meaning a large portion of boxing matches are open for interpretation. There is no league structure, and more and more, the sport’s elite fight on a semiannual basis, making the amount of quantitative data minimal. However, everyone understands that fighting a person bigger than you is a genuine challenge, even when a skill gap exists.
(Left) The great Henry Armstrong was the ultimate weight-division sorcerer.
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