Crawford stops Lundy to retain WBO title

AP

NEW YORK — Terence Crawford stood on the second rope, mouth open and tongue sticking out for the entire world to see.

Simply, it was the picture of a man enjoying his success.

“It’s real satisfying,” Crawford said after stopping Henry Lundy 2 minutes, 9 seconds into the fifth round to retain his WBO super lightweight title Saturday night.

“Glad I got the job done (and) put on a great show.”

The bout picked up where the fighters left off at their final press conference Thursday, when they exchanged words before Crawford shoved Lundy in front of photographers.

Crawford (28-0) drew blood in the fourth round, opening a cut along Lundy’s right eye. Crawford then dropped Lundy (26-6-1) for a standing eight count with a combination early in the fifth, and after the fight was restarted, Crawford’s assault continued until referee Steve Willis stopped the fight.

“I caught him with some good shots,” Crawford said. “I was picking up momentum.”

According to Compubox stats, Crawford landed 89 of 247 total punches, including 49 of 84 power punches. By comparison, Lundy connected on 47 of 211 punches, and 31 of 85 power punches.

“He got me with a good shot,” Lundy said.

Following the fight, Crawford and Lundy embraced in the ring.

“(He) hit me on the top of my head and threw (my) equilibrium off,” Lundy said. “Couldn’t recover.”

While the main event was explosive from the opening bell, the earlier semi-main event between Felix Verdejo and Willian Silva in the WBO Latino Championship Lightweight division was an exhibition of scientific boxing. Verdejo took a 10-round, unanimous decision over Silva to improve to 20-0.

“I felt very good,” Verdejo said. “This is a new learning experience for me.”

In the first four rounds, Silva and Verdejo used their feinting and movement in order to trade jabs. Verdejo slightly began to open up in the fifth with heavier shots, one of which staggered Silva late in the round.

But there was little in the way of a sustained attack from either fighter in the later rounds, which may have had to do with Silva’s philosophy of circling away from Verdejo.

“He moved a lot during the fight,” Verdejo said.

Verdejo landed more jabs (39), power punches (67) and total punches (106), but Silva disagreed with the judges’ decision. Only one judge, John McKaie, thought Silva won a round, the ninth. The remaining two judges, Alan Rubenstein and Robin Taylor, gave Verdejo all 10 rounds.

“I don’t care what the scorecard says. I thought I did enough to win the fight,” Silva said.

The Crawford-Lundy and Verdejo-Silva bouts highlighted a seven-fight card which drew a sellout crowd of 5,092 at The Theatre at Madison Square Garden.

Emanuel Taylor, Sean Monaghan, Christopher Diaz, Jean Carlos Torres and Julian Rodriguez all won their undercard fights. Taylor knocked out Wilfredo Acuna in the sixth round of a super lightweight bout; Monaghan improved to 26-0 with a fifth-round stoppage of Finnish light-heavyweight Janne Foreman; Diaz knocked out Angel Luna at the 2:42 mark of the fourth round of their featherweight fight; Torres moved to 4-0 by stopping Miguel Gloria (1-2) via third-round technical knockout, while Rodriguez took an eight-round, unanimous decision over King Daluz (12-3-2).