Terence Crawford’s trainer has revealed the simple game plan he gave his fighter to be able to defeat Canelo Alvarez and become the undisputed super-middleweight champion.
Explaining how his fighter outpointed the Mexican great, Brian “BoMac” McIntyre said he wanted to capitalise on Crawford’s advantages as a southpaw.
“Just keep turning him, keep him on the inside,” McIntyre explained to FightHype during Crawford’s victory parade on Sunday. “If you’re fighting a southpaw or if you fight in a southpaw stance, you always want to keep them on the inside.
“Take away the right hand, your left hand will travel a shorter distance than his right hand, because his right hand has to come across his body, your left hand goes straight down the pipe. Real easy.”
What McIntyre is referring to is the built-in advantage a southpaw has in being able to more naturally put their lead foot on the outside of their orthodox opponent’s, taking them off at a slight angle which makes it more difficult for the right hand of the orthodox fighter to reach the target, whereas the rear left hand of the orthodox fighter is in direct line to the target.
It’s something we have also seen the undisputed heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk employ to help him conquer the blue-riband division so easily.
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Crawford used this masterfully to deal with everything Canelo could throw at him earlier this month – making the Mexican miss or absorbing the singular heavy shots he would throw and firing back immediately with three or four shots to win the exchanges on the inside, leaving Canelo visibly frustrated in the later rounds of the fight.
This is a similar way in which we saw Dmitry Bivol beat Alvarez – by simply punching with Canelo and throwing more shots to capitalise on his steadily declining output in fights.
McIntyre credited Crawford with boxing perfectly to the gameplan and said his only concern was the power that Canelo carried.
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McIntyre said: “Exactly everything we worked on in camp, he did it. Punch selection, catch and release, everything.
“[Crawford] had great conditioning; he worked with guys in the UFC. So that’s one thing I was concerned about [Canelo’s power] going into the fight, but I told them guys [at the UFC] ‘make sure he can absorb that power’. He absorbed it very well.”
Crawford, who celebrated his 38th birthday on Sunday, is now a three-weight undisputed champion and enjoyed a victory parade in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, before making a plan for his next move, which many expect to be a drop down to the middleweight division to attempt to conquer a sixth weight class.
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