Terence Crawford had to meet David Avanesyanto fight at least one fight in 2022. On the priority list of an undefeated champion in three weight divisions and a contender for the title of the best in the P4P rating, it is worth breaking the trend of having one fight a year.
"My goal is to fight as often as possible," Crawford told BoxingScene.com. — I would like to fight two or three times in 2023. I definitely want to be more active while I'm healthy."
Crawford has only had one fight a year for the last three years. The alarming trend began with fourth-round knockout wins in November 2020 over former world welterweight champion Kell Brook. For Crawford, this was the first fight since the pandemic shut down fans from attending fights and left him out of the ring for eleven months. Crawford (39-0, 30 KOs) was able to return to the ring after another year when he knocked out former two-time welterweight champion Shawn Porter in the tenth round last November in Las Vegas.
The victory over Porter marked Crawford's last fight with Top Rank after nearly a decade with the company.
Another year-long break in his career followed Crawford's sixth-round knockout victory over Avanesyan (29-4-1, 17 KOs) and the successful defense of the WBO welterweight title at the BLK Prime tournament on December 10 in his native Omaha, Nebraska. A long break was facilitated by a multi-month period of negotiations with WBA, WBC and IBF welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. (28-0, 22 KOs). Negotiations officially broke off in mid-October, by which point Crawford had revealed his plan to face Avanesyan instead of waiting until the end of February for a potential superfight with Spence.
The 35-year-old Crawford fought quite actively during his performances in the lightweight and super lightweight divisions. He fought three times at lightweight in 2014, which was awarded by the BWAA as the best fighter of the year. Then he moved up in weight and led seven title fights at 63 kg in 40 months, and eventually became the undisputed division champion.
The move to welterweight was followed by Crawford's longest period of inactivity, ten months before he was able to enter the ring and knock out undefeated WBO title holder Jeff Horn in the ninth round in June 2018. Four months later, Crawford stopped the undefeated Jose Benavidez Jr. in the twelfth round in Omaha, followed by a stoppage victory in April 2019 against former champion Amir Khan. The undefeated Crawford has only had four fights in the past 42 months, including more than a year off in a row.
“I just have to stay active,” Crawford says. "From what's going on right now, I can stay in the ring and stay active as often as I want."
