RINGSIDE
No. 1 or No. 2 ranked TV show in the days that followed. The event generated 41.9 billion impressions online and across social media conversations, and it was also heavily covered by mainstream and legacy media (The New York Times, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, etc.).
Ring champs Sugar Ray Leonard (welterweight, junior middleweight and middleweight), Manny Pacquiao (featherweight, junior lightweight and junior welterweight), Floyd Mayweather Jr. (lightweight, welterweight and junior middleweight) and Alvarez (junior middleweight, middleweight and super middleweight). Crawford joins Thomas Hearns, Leonard and Mayweather as five-division world titleholders. (Only six-division titleholder Oscar De La Hoya, seven- division beltholder Amanda Serrano, and Pacquiao, the recordholder with world titles in eight weight classes, exceed that elite foursome.)
10th round and agreed with the 115- 113 score. If casual fans saw it that way, it’s not a bad thing. It means they witnessed a compelling fight. My guess is that the next time a legitimate championship fight is presented on Netflix, they will watch with interest. T hough it hurts my heart to do so, I must acknowledge the passing of two beloved members of the world boxing community – Ricky Hatton and Thomas Gerbasi – the most genuine individuals that I or anyone else had the pleasure of meeting. Hatton was hands down the most popular British fighter of the 21st century. His fans filled U.K. arenas, particularly in his hometown of Manchester, and they often traveled en masse to his major fights in Las Vegas. They
•
•
Most importantly, the fight wasn’t a dud. From my vantage point in the stadium (a floor seat next to Lamar Clark, the creative director of this fine magazine), Crawford was in control from start to finish. However, Canelo landed enough to make it interesting in some rounds, giving his fans hope that he might be able to clip Crawford with a big shot down the stretch of the fight.
Of the many impressive weight- hopping victories I’ve witnessed over the decades, Crawford’s super middleweight triumph
ranks with Roy Jones Jr.’s heavyweight title-winning decision over John Ruiz and Pacquiao’s punishing 12th-round stoppage of Miguel Cotto. In terms of performances by a veteran between the ages of 35-40, Crawford outboxing Canelo
literally took over The Strip for the Jose Luis Castillo, Paulie Malignaggi, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao events. The Hatton- Pacquiao weigh-in was the loudest I ever experienced. But Ricky wasn’t just an attraction, he was a legit junior welterweight badass during the 2000s and he reached the pinnacle of his division and the sport midway
is up there with Bernard Hopkins’ masterclasses against Felix Trinidad and Antonio Tarver, or Pacquiao outpointing Keith Thurman. C rawford wasn’t the only big winner on September 13. The Riyadh Season-backed event, which took place at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, scored several victories for a struggling U.S. boxing scene:
Expectations were high for a clash of two pound-for-pound-rated fighters, and they didn’t disappoint.
through the decade when he stopped Kostya Tszyu to earn the Ring/IBF junior welterweight championship. He added the WBA belt to his collection with a brutal ninth-round KO of Carlos Maussa to clinch The Ring’s 2005 Fighter of the Year award. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2024. Hatton was a frenetic pressure fighter who often fought through bloody facial lacerations as he overwhelmed his opposition, usually with vicious body punching. However, outside of the ring he was a low-key sweetheart, just one of the guys. Somehow, he remained that way throughout the height of his career and fame.
That didn’t happen. It was Crawford who raised his game in the championship rounds, and, as it turned out, he needed something special to win by scores of 116-112 and 115-113 (twice). Again, that’s not the fight that I witnessed, but I wasn’t scoring the bout, round by round. Pundits and members of the press row media that I respect – including Dan Rafael, Mike Coppinger, Sergio Mora, Adam Abramowitz and Cliff Rold – had the fight even after the
•
The attendance – 70,482 – is the second- biggest indoor gathering for a boxing event in U.S. history. That astonishing gathering produced a gate of $47.2 million, the third-highest ever for boxing. The live broadcast on Netflix pulled in more than 41 million global viewers over the weekend and the on-demand replays were the streaming platform’s
•
•
18 RINGMAGAZINE.COM
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker