\n<\/p>\n
Terence \u201cBud\u201d Crawford made history on Saturday night in Las Vegas, outpointing Sa\u00fal \u201cCanelo\u201d \u00c1lvarez by a unanimous decision to become the undisputed super-middleweight champion of the world.<\/p>\n
Before a crowd of more than 70,000 at Allegiant Stadium \u2013 the largest boxing attendance in Las Vegas history \u2013 Crawford, 37, defied the size gap and years of doubt to beat Mexico\u2019s biggest star across 12 rounds. The official scores were 116-112, 115-113 and 115-113, all for Crawford.<\/p>\n
Already the first man of the four-belt era to unify titles in two weight classes, Crawford now adds a third, vaulting from generational talent into the sport\u2019s all-time pantheon.<\/p>\n
Crawford started quickly, boxing out of a southpaw stance and working behind his jab. He matched Canelo\u2019s early body shots, then began to find openings upstairs. By the middle rounds he was out-landing and out-thinking the defending champion, snapping \u00c1lvarez\u2019s head back with sharp counters while using his reach and lateral movement to stay out of danger.<\/p>\n
Canelo had moments, particularly to the body, but he struggled to cut off the ring or adjust. As the fight wore on, Crawford\u2019s grew more emboldened, landing crisp combinations and even standing in the pocket to trade. In the championship rounds, the American was in total command, smiling as he picked off Canelo\u2019s increasingly desperate attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cCanelo is a great champio,\u201d Crawford said in the ring afterward. \u201cI\u2019ve got to take my hat off to him. Hes a strong competitor. Like I said before, I\u2019ve got nothing but respect for Canelo. I\u2019m a big fan of Canelo and he fought like a champion today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about his future, Crawford was noncommittal. \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve got to sit down with my team and talk about it. I\u2019d just like to say thank you to all the supporters, thank you to all the haters. I appreciate all of y\u2019all.\u201d<\/p>\n
For \u00c1lvarez, 35, it was only the third defeat of a storied 64-fight career. The four-division champion had been entrenched at 168lb for nearly seven years, but on this night was at times made to look ordinary by Crawford\u2019s speed and timing.<\/p>\n
This is a developing story. More to follow.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Terence \u201cBud\u201d Crawford made history on Saturday night in Las Vegas, outpointing Sa\u00fal \u201cCanelo\u201d \u00c1lvarez by a unanimous decision to become the undisputed super-middleweight champion of the world. Before a crowd of more than 70,000 at Allegiant Stadium \u2013 the largest boxing attendance in Las Vegas history \u2013 Crawford, 37, defied the size gap and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[12960,3618,12959,3758,12961,6026,5290,3687,9772,3615],"class_list":{"0":"post-21182","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-alvarez","9":"tag-boxing","10":"tag-canelo","11":"tag-champion","12":"tag-crawford","13":"tag-middleweight","14":"tag-stuns","15":"tag-super","16":"tag-terence","17":"tag-undisputed"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}