As expected, Terence Crawford’s hold on all four major titles has been short-lived. According to ESPN’s Dan Rafael, Crawford was due to make a mandatory IBF title defense against Sergey Lipinets, but with no plans to return in time to make it happen he instead chose to voluntarily vacate the title.
Terence Crawford vacates IBF title
Crawford drops one of his world titles after holding all four for just 11 days.
Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images
Wil Esco is an assistant editor of Bad Left Hook and has been covering boxing for SB Nation since 2014.
That means Crawford held all four major titles for all of 11 days as an undisputed unified champion — one day longer than Tyson Fury held three major belts before getting stripped by the IBF.
Crawford won both the WBA and IBF titles on August 19th with an emphatic third round knockout of Julius Indongo, with him having already laid claim to the WBC and WBO titles. There was really no compelling fight left for Crawford at 140lbs, so this move was pretty much inevitable.
As Crawford already cemented himself as the creme of the crop at junior welterweight, the next best challenges await him at 147lbs (although Top Rank’s stable in the division is pretty bare). Crawford has been mentioned as targeting the winner of the rematch between Manny Pacquiao and Jeff Horn, but aside from that fight, who is really out there for him that’s not aligned with Al Haymon?
But at least the beef between Top Rank and Haymon has thawed a bit, so perhaps we’ll soon get to see Crawford in with a formidable opponent at 147, where there’s the likes of Errol Spence Jr., Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia, and Shawn Porter could potentially await him, just to name a few.
Maybe we’ll even get to see Crawford in against someone like Mikey Garcia in the near future. There’s been some buzz surrounding that potential fight, but whether or not it can be put together from a business standpoint remains to be seen.
See More:
