Terence Crawford vs Amir Kahn (Fight Analysis)
By Ralph Rimpell
PhilBoxing.com
Sat, 20 Apr 2019
This evening in New York City at Madison Square Garden, 3 division champion and current WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford (34-0, 25KOs), arguably the best fighter Pound for Pound (P4P), defends his welterweight crown against former unified junior welterweight champion Amir Kahn (37-4, 33KOs)of Great Britain. Much is at stake for both fighters. The victor can look forward to high profile PPV fights with bigger paydays against the likes of fighters like Pacquiao, Spence Thurman, and Porter. While the loser will have to get in back of the proverbial line and work his way back into title contention. So what does each fighter have to do to be victorious?
Crawford can do it all in the ring. He has speed, power, stamina, intelligence, the ability to switch from Orthodox (fight from the right stance) to Southpaw (fight from the left stance), and in 34 fights he has shown he can adapt to any fighting style. Because of the perceived speed advantage some boxing writers are saying Kahn has over Crawford, he will have to ?time? Kahn?s punches and movement in order to negate Kahn?s speed. Kahn will likely land and be effective for no more than 3 rounds at which time Crawford will systematically break Amir down with punches to the body. Once that begins to happen in the fight, Kahn will abandon his well-crafted fight plan with trainer Virgil Hill and revert to survival mode.
In order for Kahn to pull off the upset of the year and defeat Crawford, he has to execute his fight plan to the letter and not make a mistake from the sound of the first bell for all 12 rounds until the last bell ending the fight. He will have to bring immaculate stamina to the fight to keep up pace to maintain his speed so he doesn?t fade and tire in the later rounds. He has to use combinations, angles, use the entire ring, and use good foot work. When he lands punches against Crawford he has to make the punches count and earn Crawford?s respect. Not even former unified champion Yuriorkis Gamboa who appeared to stun Crawford when they fought at lightweight four years ago was able to do that. In a nutshell in order for Amir Kahn to defeat Terrance Crawford he has to fight the ?perfect fight? and Crawford has to have a ?bad night?.
This writer envisions a competitive fight for the first 4 rounds. Amir will begin to tire and fade by the 5th round. At which time Crawford will have adapted to Kahn?s style and systematically begin to break Kahn down. Look for Crawford to stop Kahn in the 9th round and retain his WBO crown.
Contact Writer: RLuvsboxing@aol.com
***Ralph Rimpell is a writer based out of New York and is a Boxing Correspondent for Philboxing.com. Ralph holds an undergraduate degree from City University of New York. He has been a Boxing Writer for over ten years having written for several top boxing websites on the World Wide Web. Before becoming a writer, Ralph's passion was for professional wrestling until he realized professional wrestling was entertainment and not a real sport. It was at that time the 1984 US Olympic team made up of future stars such as Evander Holyfield, Meldrick Taylor, Pernell Whitaker, etc. entered the professional ranks and signed with promotional outfit Main Events.It was also at that time a young exciting Heavyweight originally hailing from Brooklyn named Mike Tyson also turned professional and became the face of boxing. Young boxing fan Ralph just couldn't get enough of boxing as a large part of it was being broadcast on "free TV". As time went on, Ralph felt boxing writers were not being forthcoming with their boxing coverage, opinion pieces, interviews, etc. So Ralph decided to write an article and submitted it to a Boxing website thinking it would be deleted and ignored by the Editor. To Ralph's surprise his article was posted on their website and the readers embraced it. The rest is history.
"I thank God for the Internet because it has created opportunities for writers like myself who likely would not have been given an opportunity to write for print publications. I hope someday soon to expand my role in Boxing on different levels." -- Ralph Rimpell
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ralph Rimpell.
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