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Mike CoppingerESPN
LAS VEGAS – Terence Crawford and Shawn Porter both weighed under the 147-pound limit on Friday, the day before they compete for the WBO Welterweight title (9 p.m. ET, ESPN+ pay-per-view).
Crawford, the champion, leans in at 146.4 pounds; Porter weighs 146.6.
“I respect everything Shawn does,” Crawford, 34, said Wednesday. “Shawn is a strong man, he can hit the box, he can hit, he can move in the ring, he can cut corners and snap corners.
“I’m not going to sit here and say I don’t respect anything that he does. I just want to say that I do a lot better than Shawn. I’ll show him on Saturday.”
Omaha, Nebraska, native, is fighting as welterweight for the sixth time (all title fights). He won the championship with a TKO win over Jeff Horn in 2018 and most recently defended it with a goal from Kell Brook last November.
ESPN 2nd place rival Crawford finished his last 8 opponents in a 12-round gap. Porter, though, has never been stopped. All three of his losses have come from razor-thin decisions (against Brook, Thurman and most recently Errol Spence Jr.)
“All the close defeats he’s faced with Spence and Thurman, Bud will make him [Porter] looks like he’s some sort of B-level boxer,” Crawford coach Brian McIntyre told ESPN’s Ben Baby. We hope that Shawn goes there and pushes that Bud to the A-plus category, you know?
“Because when you look at it, Bud is getting better and better at fighting. The tougher the opponent, the better Bud looks.”
The two-time 147-pound champion will wrap up a 15-month career-long layoff when he meets Crawford on Saturday. More importantly, the 34-year-old Las Vegas resident will end Crawford’s wait for an elite competitor.
Crawford (37-0.28 KO) is ranked by Top Rank and Porter (31-3-1.17 KO) is ranked with PBC. Bob Arum and Al Haymon rarely did business with each other, and the controversial relationship thwarted Crawford’s hopes of fighting a top heavyweight. But when the parties reached an agreement a few months ago to avoid a purse bid, Bud finally had a top foe to prove his talent.
“When you consider the experience in this match and I have more experience than Terence Crawford, that’s a fact,” said Porter, 4th division at ESPN. “When I say the fight between me and Terence Crawford is going to be great, it’s going to be great. When I say I’ve got what it takes to beat him, don’t fall asleep, believe it.”
