It’s hard to poke holes in Terence Crawford’s fight game.
After all, the WBO welterweight world champion is undefeated at 39-0 with 30 of those victories coming by the way of knockout.
That being said, there’s a moment when Errol Spence’s trainer, Derrick James, sits down to review fight footage of Crawford on Showtime’s All Access, ahead of the mega Spence-Crawford showdown for undisputed welterweight glory on July 29. And when James does so, he hones in on one unanswered question that could possibly be a deficiency of Crawford’s.
At first, all James does is offer praise.
“Terence, what makes him dynamic is he’s very elusive,” James says.
“He’s able to use his arm length and distance. He’s really more athletic than he is boxing skill. He’s very athletic, very fast, very quick twitch muscles.”
After heaping on the compliments, James digs a little deeper and raises a question about Crawford’s desire.
“He’s a great threat, but you can’t judge the depth of his desire until you get in the ring,” James explained further.
“If Errol is hitting you and breaking your ribs, breaking your orbital bone and you keep fighting, breaking your nose, you can’t see that [desire] from his record, but on paper, he is the most accomplished fighter in boxing.
“But I think that it comes a point where someone is breaking you,” he continued.
"How much do you really want it? And that’s what we’ll see.”
Crawford’s desire and ability to endure rough patches haven’t been questioned much.
Fighting against Egidijus Kavaliauskas in December 2019, Crawford appeared to be knocked down early in the fight, although he insisted he slipped. “Bud” did overwhelm Kavaliauskas toward an eventual ninth-round TKO.
Two fights later, Crawford seemingly broke the will of Shawn Porter, resulting in a 10-round TKO win in November 2021.
That was more than two years after Spence needed all 12 rounds to deliver a split-decision victory over Porter.