Terrence Crawford retained the WBO welterweight title and maintained his unbeaten record, knocking out David Avanesian in the final minute of the sixth round tonight in Omaha, Neb.
Crawford (39-0, 30 KO) got some good looks from Avanesyan here, but he never lost control of the match or anything. Avanesian (29-4-1, 17 KO) came in for the fight, which even bout pundits knew he would, but once Crawford really flipped the switch in the sixth round and started sitting on the shots, he was out of his depth – which is also what Match pundits predicted it.
Avanesian had some success, but in the moments starting around round four when Crawford turned up the heat a bit, his front pressure saw him stuck in the mud and at the mercy of Crawford’s superior speed and shot selection.
The knockdown was a vicious volley, and a right hook that came at the end of a combination, laid Avanesian flat to the canvas. There was no waking up there. He eventually came around and seemed to be fine.
“I was just warming up the earlier innings,” said Crawford. “I started picking up pace, planted my foot, and caught him with a hook. We knew what he was going to bring to the table. We knew he was going to go back and forth between the orthodox and the south, and we knew he was going to counter and pressure me.”
When asked if Errol Spence Jr. would be next, Crawford only said, “I’m a free agent. That was one fight deal. Hopefully these big fights will happen in the near future.”
Highlights Crawford vs. Avanesian
Undercard highlights and results
- Chris Cyborg UD-4 Gabby Holloway: An official boxing debut actually sanctioned MMA legend Cris Cyborg, who knocked out Holloway (0-3, essentially herself an MMA fighter) in the third round. She didn’t get the stop, but she went for it. Holloway survived the final round more than anything else. No big call or anything. Fighting at 154, Cyborg would be really limited in payday-type opponents, but there has been mention in the past of her doing lightweight with lightweight champ Katie Taylor. I doubt it will happen, but the world is a strange place, you never know until you know.
- Arnold Khegai SD-10 Eduardo Baez: The best fight match in the show on paper, but it ended up being pretty bad to watch, honestly. Neither man had much accuracy nor did they show much quality. Maybe it was just a bad style match because they both looked good physically and all that; Sometimes patterns don’t fade, and boy does that, like approximately 18,000 in Omaha She was so quiet in the middle rounds that you could have heard a particularly lewd fart from a sixth grader if anyone had let a rip. Khegai (19-1-1, 11 KO) took two cards, 95-94 and 96-93, and Baez (21-4-2, 7 KO) took the other, 95-94. Bad Left Hook unofficially scored the bout 96-93 for Khegai, who kicked a point in the ninth round after about 30 warnings from the referee, who’s seen enough!
- Jeremiah Milton UD-6 DaJuan Callaway: Calloway (5-2, 5 KO) is a big fella, weighing in at nearly 400 pounds for this fight – 387½, to be exact – but he’s a big guy who knows what he’s doing out there, works within a very frankly limited range of physical ability, no energy wasted. (I don’t mean that in a funny way). It makes it difficult. Milton (8-0, 6 KO) took W with scores of 58-56, 59-55, and 59-55, and deserved the win. He was also given a weird kind of lesson that he would never repeat and probably never needed to learn, but he fought for what he had and didn’t try to force anything stupid.
- Stephen Nelson TKO-1 James Ballard: This was terrible. Ballard (10-5, 3 KO) stumbled trying to get into the ring before the fight, looked completely lost at 2:40 and this carried on, he was knocked down and mercifully stopped. Nelson (18-0, 15 KO) is 34 years old, this was his first fight in over two years due to a torn Achilles, he has never fought at the world level. He has skills, and if he’s going to make a push to get to the top level at 168/175, 2023 is the right time. It’s nice to get him back in the ring, but this one was really bad, even for what it was supposed to be.
