Boxing anointed its new pound-for-pound number one this year, as Terence Crawford settled the debate with a nine-round TKO win over Errol Spence Jr in July. As well as unifying the undisputed welterweight championship, ‘Bud’ reached the very pinnacle of his sport. After over a decade building his formidable legacy, Crawford can finally collect the plaudits his work has long-deserved.
Boxing is a sport that relies on eras. Even as they start it is with a creeping inevitability that they will end. The fact Crawford is 35 years old means his era will be judged more in impact than longevity. Some fighters rule their sport early and fade away, like Mike Tyson. Others reign supreme for so long only retirement can stop them, like Floyd Mayweather. For Terence, his tenure as the main man will likely form his final years in the sport.
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Which begs the question of who will succeed him? There are candidates too numerous to list here. But two men who are already providing echoes of our undisputed welterweight champion reside in two divisions Crawford used to reign in. Lightweight contender Shakur Stevenson and Devin Haney, the lightweight champion eyeing a move to light welterweight, have all the tools to one day take the P4P mantle.
The two undefeated stars could have given us one of the year’s biggest fights. Stevenson is the mandatory challenger for the WBC lightweight championship. The green and gold belt was held by none other than Haney as part of the undisputed lightweight championship he unified in his first victory over George Kambosos Jr. But like two ships passing in the night, Shakur and Devin have just missed each other.
Stevenson already has multi-weight success on his CV. Already a WBO featherweight boss and WBC, WBO and The Ring super featherweight champion at the age of 26, WBC lightweight king Stevenson has plenty of time to bolster that legacy. Given Haney is only 24, you feel these two emerging ring generals will be playing a game of one upmanship for a while.
Eventually, one would hope, they’ll take that game into the ring. The interest in Crawford-Spence showed the power of two world class operators with unbeaten records colliding on the big stage. If they keep going at this clip, Stevenson and Haney would be every bit as decorated as ‘The Truth’ and ‘Bud’ were going into their fight. At that point, depending on what the likes of Crawford, Naoya Inoue and Oleksandr Usyk have done since, their fight could well crown a new pound-for-pound king.
That is all to come though. For now these two superb boxers have their immediate future mapped out. Haney goes up in weight to try and emulate Stevenson and capture a new world title. Meanwhile, Stevenson tries to emulate Haney and become a belt-holder at lightweight. The game has begun between these two. How will it end? Hopefully in another occasion to rival the wonderful Spence-Crawford collision.