Earlier this month, Shakur Stevenson soundly defeated Artem Harutyunyan via unanimous decision to defend his WBC lightweight world championship.
Yet, the 27-year-old Newark, New Jersey native continued to field criticism from fans and critics alike for their pereceived lack of Stevenson producing fireworks en route to that victory.
Terence Crawford, for one, isn't having it. Days ahead of challenging WBA junior middleweight world champion Israil Madrimov this weekend, live on DAZN, Crawford slammed that criticism of Stevenson.
"I feel like he did great. He did everything he's supposed to — hit and not get hit, win the fight in flying colors," Crawford told fellow boxing legend Andre Ward during a recent sitdown interview with All The Smoke Fight.
"Everybody is not a knockout puncher," Crawford continued. "Joe Calzaghe, he wasn't a knockout puncher but he'll slap you a million times. You know you were going the distance. Floyd Mayweather, he wasn't knocking everybody out. Now when he was smaller, he was doing his thing (as far as delivering knockouts).
"Everybody's gotta understand — Shakur's moved up. This is his third division. These guys are bigger, these guys are stronger."
He added: "As far as how he's moving, I don't got no problem with it. I feel some people need to know how you feel."
The latter statement is how Crawford feels toward Stevenson taking to his X social media account and airing out anyone who criticized his boxing style.
"You're gonna talk crazy to boxers and say 'oh, well he's not knocking this guy [out].' Well, why don't you get in the ring and fight somebody and see how hard it is to knock somebody out that's been training not to get knocked out and training to knock you out?" Crawford tacked on for good measure.
"They're not going to do it. Everybody got an opinion on another person's sport until you challenge them to do the sport that they're talking about."
Live on DAZN : Check your region for PFL and PFL Europe on DAZN . Click here for details.