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Last night in the American city of Omaha, WBO light welter champ Terence Crawford, 27-0 (19), made the first defense of his crown with a good performance against challenger Dierry Jean, 29-2 (20).
Montreal based Jean had unsuccessfully challenged for the IBF 140 lb title in 2014 and as a result, had gone down to lightweight, capturing the NABF strap before heading back to light welter for the Crawford fight.
Jean showed his quick hands and reflexes from the start, providing Crawford with a difficult target that threw fast punches. But shortly thereafter Crawford switched to southpaw for the rest of the fight, throwing a wet blanket on the world title ambitions of the Canadian.
Just prior to the end of the first round, Crawford floored Jean with a right hand that the visitor never saw coming but “All In” beat the count as the round ended.
The taller Crawford then stalked his seemingly much smaller adversary, slowly exerting pressure behind a leading left hand that either jabbed or simply was held out in obvious harassment of the challenger.
Crawford threw just enough punches, landing a few here and there, to keep Jean on the defensive, and more importantly, win rounds. This went on for the first half of the contest, with Jean rarely going on the offensive.
In the sixth, Jean started to drop the cautious approach and began winging right hands at Crawford, some of which landed but were taken well by the champion.
Crawford became more careful in his offensive efforts and began to shorten the distance between the two fighters, resulting in some good two-way action, in which Crawford generally got the upper hand.
As the bout wore on, Crawford became more and more dominant, pressuring and punishing Jean. In the ninth, Jean was knocked down again near the end of the round but beat the count.
The tenth saw the challenger appear to still be suffering the affects of the previous round’s knockdown but he did a good job in surviving until Crawford closed in with a barraged of shots that caused Jean to sag on the ropes, prompting referee Tony Weeks to wave off the fight at 2:30.
There have been speculations in the media that Crawford will move up to welter early next year to face Manny Pacquiao, in what will reportedly be the Filipino icon’s final fight, but who knows what will happen in 2016?
Especially as there are still many excellent bouts for Crawford at light welter, against the likes of WBA titlist Adrien Broner, newly minted WBC kingpin Viktor Postol and IBF champ Caesar Rene Cuenca.
Jumping over across the big green pond, we land at Sheffield Arena in Sheffield, England, where middleweight Chris Eubank Jr, 20-1 (15), retained the Interim WBA strap by battering American import Tony Jeter, 20-5-1 (14).
Eubank is likely nearing a world title opportunity in the near future but could do with a little more seasoning against genuine contenders before stepping into the limelight against the likes of WBA/IBF champion Gennady Golovkin, whom Team Eubank mentioned in the media earlier this week.
Also on the bill, European super bantam boss Gavin McDonnell, 14-0-2 (4), retained the European title for the first time by turning back challenger Jeremy Parodi, 37-3-1 (9), by margins of 118-110, 117-111, 117-111.
