Terence 'Bud' Crawford finally gets to face Errol Spence Jr. and prove he's no B-side

Australia News News

Terence 'Bud' Crawford finally gets to face Errol Spence Jr. and prove he's no B-side
Australia Latest News,Australia Headlines
  • 📰 latimes
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 289 sec. here
  • 6 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 119%
  • Publisher: 82%

Terrence 'Bud' Crawford has stewed for years as an overlooked fighter. He's ready to unleash his fury when he faces Errol Spence Jr. in Las Vegas.

Deep in the eastern shoe of the Rockies, at the foot of Pikes Peak about 70 miles from Denver, the champion descended the stairs of his heartland-inspired camp house — ambling past fitted hats from decades ago, tiptoeing through exoskeletons of go-karts he’d been tinkering with and old Everlast gear hugging pounds of dog food. His eyes were barely open, yawns still sticking to the scruff of his swollen beard, but he knew there was work to do.

Around the end of one trailhead, Bud parked the pickup, quickly stretched and began to take on the six-mile trail at 7,000 feet elevation that creeped up the mountain, inch by soul-stealing inch. Bud proceeded at a trot while BoMac paced him from the car behind. Another coach drove the pickup in front of him as we crawled around Colorado, left and right, ripping up the road.Ryan Garcia became obsessed with fighting Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis.

Around the bend, tires creeping over the dirt toward civilization, the coaches feverishly scurried because they thought they saw a pair of bears back on the road.Worried something could happen to their fighter, they called the lead car to alert them of a potential threat. But Bud remained stoic. The crew in the pickup said he didn’t see the bears. He never broke pace. Bud just kept running.

Bud needed that environment in his days preparing for Errol. Mixing the youth of boxers from the Army in one corner, to rising stars like Keyshawn Davis and Shakur Stevenson in another, kept the gym flowing with active bodies. On any given night that summer, there could be 50-60 pugs hammering away on the heavy bags or dancing around the cerulean rings.Terence “Bud” Crawford trains at the Triple Threat Boxing Gym in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Once Bud stepped in the ring, his face went cold and his cheekbones stiffened. He loosened his body, shaking out his hips and moving about the ring on his toes. The way he shadowboxed, my God, it was rougher than how some men swing professionally: heavy hooks moving backward, tough straights and jabs working fluidly together in combination. Bud wasn’t physically imposing, not all sinew and shoulders — but he was meticulously built.

During the next round, he was spinning David around with his footwork, working feints into elaborate movement patterns to leave David confused. When a counter right came over the top and bashed David backward, BoMac cheered. “S—!,” he screeched. The pace kept increasing by the round. David was starting to swing for the stars. “Pay attention!” Bud warned him, before popping him again, punitively. “Oh my God,” one parent of a teenage boxer could be heard saying, after the next hit.

“Yeahhhh! That’s right!” he said, cupping his hand over his mouth to ensure his voice carried. “Bruise em’, bruise em’ up! Let’s see if he can handle it!” BoMac was egging on Willie. But it only lit a fire in Bud’s back. The next morning, after a strength and conditioning session run by a trainer who has worked sets for the movie “Creed,” one that coach Red Spinks described as “some torture s—” and Bud said left him aching in “mah hips, mah knees and mah ass,” coaches and crew crept back up the mountain to the camp house.

“Sports took me all over the world, places that I would’ve never thought I would’ve been if it wasn’t for boxing,” he told me, picking at his food. He loved competing, at anything. Football, basketball; Hell, even playin’ cards if he could. Wrestling was even in his blood. His father, Big T, was a local legend in the grappling game, even up to the point where it took him to the Navy and across the country, leaving Bud at home, alone, with his mother, Debra, and two older sisters.

As Bud liked to say, “she’s mean and nice at the same time.” Miss Debra used to say Bud was meant for boxing, that he came out of the womb with his fists balled up ready for a fight. Big T echoed that, claiming the boy born on Larrimore Street would be a million-dollar baby. But raising a Black boy in a city looking to devour him at every turn was a complicated feat. Something that could break anyone handling it alone.

One day, after a year in the gym, the coaches wanted to test his mettle. They threw him in the ring against an active fighter, much taller and stronger than Bud who quickly humbled the boy. Bud was heartbroken, but felt like he found his future. He just had to take a detour, first. “We got this tough lil’ Mexican down here,” Bernie told him on the corner that day. “We think he might whoop you.”

“If we gonna play the game, if I’ma challenge you and you gonna challenge me? If we gonna play the game? I’ma play it to win,” Bud said about his competitive drive. “Anything I do? I’ma play it to win. I’m not gone play it just because, like ‘Oh, that was fun, but I’ma get my ass kicked.’ No. Whatever I do in life, I will do it to win.

“Listen, like I tell everybody: me and Errol are two grown men,” he said. “Gettin’ on the phone and agreeing to terms is what we did, and that’s the end of it. That’s how this fight got done. Me and Errol Spence got on the phone and came to an agreement with each other.” He said it was as simple as each fighter, “going back to tell our peoples and get everything in writing.”The delays in getting to this fight, Bud said, came from him being iced out, and it was out of his control.

Smart business for the sport normally makes for boring boxing. Inflammatory publicity stunts and circus acts to entice organizations to match up fighters was a route Bud said he was never willing to go. It’s taken 40 fights for Bud’s star to come to Vegas, the mecca for the sport. If he was one of the best they had to offer, how could it take this long for a top billing?

“It was a lot of broken promises,” BoMac said. “It was a slap in the face.” When the fight was even in the works, BoMac would cross his fingers while rattling off whatever explanation came to his head. “I’m happy it got done,” he admitted. “But,” he said. “I’m happier for him. I swear to God, man. He’s been talkin’ about this fight for years, about what he’s gonna accomplish, and what he’s gonna do. And how he’s gonna f— this dude up.

We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

latimes /  🏆 11. in US

Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

CMT could face Bud Light situation after canceling Jason Aldean’s video, financial guru saysCMT could face Bud Light situation after canceling Jason Aldean’s video, financial guru saysCMT could have learned that Americans are sick of forced agendas if they simply paid attention to Bud Light before puling Jason Aldean’s video, according to a financial guru.
Read more »

Ron DeSantis threatens Anheuser-Busch over Bud Light marketing campaign with Dylan MulvaneyRon DeSantis threatens Anheuser-Busch over Bud Light marketing campaign with Dylan MulvaneyFlorida Gov. Ron DeSantis is hinting at legal action against Bud Light's parent company, Anheuser-Busch InBev, for the beer brand's promotion earlier this year with TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney.
Read more »

DeSantis seeks review of Florida’s holdings in Bud Light maker over transgender influencer backlashDeSantis seeks review of Florida’s holdings in Bud Light maker over transgender influencer backlashPresidential candidate and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis wants Florida to investigate its investments in the company that makes Bud Light because of conservative backlash over a transgender social media influencer marketing the beverage.
Read more »

Analysis | DeSantis postures on Bud Light — wielding heavy hand of government againAnalysis | DeSantis postures on Bud Light — wielding heavy hand of government againAnalysis: DeSantis postures on Bud Light — wielding heavy hand of government again. Experts say the effort doesn’t appear to be serious. But it says a lot about the GOP.
Read more »



Render Time: 2025-02-26 18:22:19