Fighter of the Month: Terence Crawford

It was pretty well unanimous from the TTR board that Terence Crawford was the Fighter of the Month for August. He had become first fighter in many years to achieve Undisputed Champion status in a weight class when he unified all of the major organizational titles (WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO) by stopping WBA/IBF champ Julius Indongo.

Crawford had won the then vacant WBO title by stopping Thomas Dulorme in 2015 and unified that title with the WBC's when he outpointed Viktor Postol in 2016. The latter victory also brought Crawford lineal recognitiion as well as the vacant Ring Magazine championship.

Like his bout with Postol, the unifier wth Indongo was a match between the junior welterweight division's top two fighters. Again, Crawford left no doubt who was the division's best. With a spectacular display of timing and accuracy, he dominated and in the 3rd round, a perfectly placed left to the liver dropped Indongo for the count. The plan coming in, Crawford said, was to take advantage of Indongo's wide attacks and attack his body. The plan was executed as well as one could hope for. Unfortunately, Boxing being Boxing, it was only a matter of days before Crawford's status as an "Undisputed Champion" came to an end. He vacated the IBF title knowing that if he didn't fight IBF mandatory challenger Sergey Lipinets next he would be stripped of the IBF's belt. Having established himself as one of the sport's top performers Pound-For-Pound, Crawford and his camp did not believe a bout with Lipinets would generate the purse Crawford desreves or the prestige he is seeking.

Nevertheless, his win over Indongo marked his place in Boxing history, and, to go along with all that, he's also TTR's Fighter of the Month.



Fight of the Month: Yordenis Ugas W10 Thomas Dulorme

I mentioned before the card started that I thought this one had the potential steal the show on the Mayweather vs McGregor card, and in this Boxing fan's opinion, and the opinion of the TTR board at large, it did! It was looking like it might be a bit of a mismatch early as Ugas scored 2 knockdowns in the 2nd round. Dulorme has had a history of not responding well to being hurt so it seemed very likely that this was gonna be a short night. To Dulorme's credit, he hung tough, fired back his share of shots, and began making his mark in the fight. As the damage, and the fatigue began to add up, Dulorme was able to score a knockdown of his own in the 7th round but unfortunately for Dulorme it wasn't enough to get him back into the fight on the scorecards. Losing 2 points in the 6th and 10th rounds for low blows didn't help either, and the scores were close enough that without those point deductions Dulorme might've escaped with a draw or even a narrow win. At any rate, it was an excellent fight, and it showed the best of both fighters. It went from what looked like an early destruction to becoming a tremendous battle and TTR's Fight of the Month!


Knockout of the Month: Hugo Centeno Jr. KO 3 Immanuwel Aleem

A tremendous win for Centeno. Immanuwel Aleem had just come off an upset win in his previous bout stopping Ievgen Khytrov in a great fight. He was facing another stiff challenge this night in Centeno, and this time a win for him wasn't in the cards. He had difficulty early on getting past the jab of the rangy Centeno who continued to trouble him the whole way. The end came suddenly in the 3rd when a quick left hook landed right on the button on Aleem's chin. Aleem dropped to the mat very hard with the back of his head bouncing off the mat on impact. It was one of those KO's where you don't have to count, you know it's over. A spectacular victory for Centeno, giving his career a tremendous boost and giving him the honor of scoring TTR's Knockout of the Month!