Manny Pacquiao, left, of the Philippines, hits Jessie Vargas during their WBO welterweight title boxing match, Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)
The undefeated WBO light welterweight boxing champion Terence Crawford loved to sell his fights by adopting his mother’s bold battle cry: If you get hit, hit back. Hard!
To those who saw Crawford’s last fight against the stand-up warrior Viktor Postol, Crawford failed to apply that motherhood fighting formula.
“That’s movement, that’s boxing, Crawford would cry out loud in celebrating his hard-earned win over Postol.
For the record, Crawford won that big one mainly on his elusiveness, not on solid combat competence.
The title fight, for most of the rounds, often appeared more of a wild-goose chase; although Crawford would claim he used a superb way of slipping out of harm’s way.
He called it a dance; critics said it was more of a frantic escape act.
Listen. Now that Floyd Mayweather Jr. has firmly dashed out hopes of a return bout with Manny Pacquiao. “I’m retired. Listen, I don’t want to fight anymore.” comes the question on who the Filipino boxing superhero, the only senator in the world with a world boxing crown, would fight next.
It would be recalled that Pacquiao ended up facing Jessie Vargas after he was advised that Crawford, a popular first choice, would prove young, quick, strong, and quite dangerous.
By the way, in initially lining up other possible active Pacquiao opponents, immediately after that win over Vargas, Crawford’s name got mentioned ahead of Danny Garcia and Keith Thurmond.
If you asked Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum, nothing could be more lucrative at this point than a Pacquiao-Crawford clash.
It would surely offer fierce elements of an exciting, compelling combat.
Crawford, by the way, has consistently maintained all he needed was for Pacquiao to agree and take on him.
The silence on the part of Team Pacquiao, following the rejection by Mayweather of the proposed rematch, has been deafening.