MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 🚨 Terence Crawford vs. Shawn Porter Results | Post-Fight Show

Episode Date: November 21, 2021

WBO welterweight champion boxer Terrence Crawford defends his title against Shawn Porter in this PBC-Top Rank main event on ESPN+. Luke Thomas will have all of your results and analysis of the big boxing match in this post-fight show. Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. TD Direct Investing offers live support. So whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count.

And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Hi, everybody. Remember me? My name is Luke Thomas. I am one half of the hosting duo of Morning Combat from Showtime as well as CBS Sports. How are you doing on this technically 21st now of November 2021? We have just witnessed, if you are watching this live, the conclusion of Terrence Crawford versus Sean Porter. This is a post-fight special show, whatever you want to call it. Instant reaction.

Marveling at the results of what we just saw. Great fight, fantastic result, big, fun, good stuff. Okay, housekeeping notes. Please give this video a thumbs up if you are watching, and maybe subscribe if you haven't done that yet as well. We already have the UFC post-fight show if you want to watch that at some point, either now or later. But right now, of course, we're now going to switch gears and transition to boxing. All right. As always, if you don't want spoilers, I know some people are like, why are you doing this as a service? Why would people be here if they didn't want spoilers? I will tell you, they will get mad if you don't tell them that there are spoilers coming.

But in fact, there are. So if you don't want them, now's the time to go. All right. So with that out of the way, let's get this party started, shall we? Okay. Let me turn this off. There we are. So if you are here, you are looking for results. Let's talk about them. Terrence Crawford defeats Sean Porter via TKO. He becomes the first fighter to stop him, although there is a little controversy about it, but hear me out for just a second. at the Michelob Ultra Arena, I believe at the Mandalay Bay, and of course he retained his WBO

welterweight title. Mandalay Bay, my favorite of the Vegas casinos slash hotels that are on the strip. I don't like staying on the strip if I can avoid it. The Vidara is nice. The Signature is nice because there's actually no casino in them, but if you have to stay in a casino hotel, I prefer Mandalay Bay because it's at the end of the strip, a little less riff-raff, walking down the street, just walking on in. So there's a little recommendation from old Dr. Salton Pepper. Okay, let's talk about this. So Bud Crawford wins. Let me pull up my notes from this because they are somewhat extensive. That was an incredible performance here. I'm going to read you some of the CompuBox stats, although I don't know that that will really tell you the story of the fight. I have to say, Sean Porter made a really strong account of himself. I gave him the first three

of the four rounds. I gave round four to Crawford. That was the first one I gave. You could have given some other ones. A lot of the rounds were close. Some more action-packed than others. Some hard to call because you couldn't, you know, there wasn't a huge difference in volume. There wasn't a huge difference in some of the, what appeared to be how hard that they were landing. But in the end, dude, Bud Crawford is just a boxing savant. You are living in an age of somebody of incredible ability. You know, Sean Porter has been tested by the very best his generation has to offer. And most of the time, even when the guys win, you know, they come out of there a little bit roughed up on the other end.

And Bud took some licks tonight, to be clear. But his offensive abilities are just, he's extraordinary. I will say, but Sean Porter, man, he made such a strong account of himself. As I mentioned, I gave him the three of the first four rounds. But beyond that, what did he really do in this fight that I found so impressive? You're not going to land on Bud Crawford very easily, right? I mean, that's going to be hard to do, to land a clean shot on him. He either has to make a mistake or you have to do something really, really, really good.

It's not going to happen otherwise. The first thing I noticed that he was doing, and you heard Timothy Bradley talk about it, but let's talk about it in detail. I thought the stance and the defensive choices that Porter was making and then alternating between them was great. So what do I mean by that? He had two main stances, although he had other ones as well,

but he had two main ones. One was he had a really low crouch. You saw a lot of transitioning later in the fight to uppercuts from Crawford to body shots, right, to Crawford, from Crawford to Porter, I should say, to kind of counteract that. But he had this kind of low stance where he would come in weaving, maybe throw an overhand, maybe start to the body, then throw an overhand. But he was kind of low stance where he would come in weaving, maybe throw an overhand, maybe start to the body, then throw an overhand. But he was kind of planted, right? I mean, he was mobile, he was moving, but he was planted. He would switch from that to a bouncing style, front and back, and almost at this exact rhythm. So if you're bouncing on your toes like this, and for MMA fans who are watching, you would know exactly who does this., and for MMA fans who are watching,

you would know exactly who does this. There's a lot of guys, actually, you could point to a couple. Robert Whitaker would be a great example. Obviously, they're using it for MMA purposes in different ways, but bouncing and then blitzing. So he had this kind of low crouch stance he was using for a lot of body work, a lot of entries. He was trying to make from far away. Then he would go to the bounce style. And he even had like a third one, actually a fourth one even. He had a third one where he would get, he would bounce, get a little bit close, and then he would go high hands up here, sort of expecting contact, walking through anything that Crawford was throwing to get close to him. And then on the inside, just sort of trying to dictate the clinch if he could. That was one, another one.

There was beyond those. But so, it's not just the stance that you get in where your hands are in a certain position and you're bouncing, where your feet are planted. It's that when you get in that stance, a certain kind of offense and rhythm and choice has to go behind it. So it dictates the kind of fight you can offer an opponent given the realities of that context you're set in. The context either being you're planted with a low stance, you're up on your toes and you're moving.

Those dictate what you can do. And so he was making, without switching stances really, although he did do some shifting as he moved into range, Sean Porter. But you get the idea. So Crawford is trying to get a read on, like, what weapons is he looking for from what ranges based on the stances. It was a lot to offer him, and I think at first it gave him a lot of problems. Another thing I noticed he was doing through the course of the fight

was he didn't want to clinch with Crawford. He wanted to get in close with him and then back him up against the ropes, but he didn't obviously want to wrestle with him if that could at all be avoided. And so what you saw was he would try and punch with Crawford as Crawford would try to underhook and hold him so that the referee would actually never intervene. He would almost do the referee's job for him by just sort of going berserk with the punches. It had some effect early. It was actually

pretty early, quite effective, I actually thought. And yeah, I mean, that was really what he was kind of working with. You saw a lot of doubling of the jab, a lot of tripling of the jab. You heard Bud Crawford talk about it after the fact, how many chances he had to take to kind of get into range. All that is true. But I thought, man, this guy came with a lot of different looks, a lot of different weapons, a lot of different things for Bud Crawford to think about as he's trying to do what he was doing, and he was landing. He was getting good work in. I thought a lot of some of the overhands were landing early. I don't have to look at the numbers to see what the body work was. We'll talk about that in just a second.

But, dude, it was great. And then there were other parts, like halfway through the fight, where you could see Crawford was making some adjustments, which we'll talk about in just a second. You could see that the rounds were getting a little bit closer. Sean didn't quite have the same energy. But at times, he would just kind of outwork him a little bit. So you have this great preparation.

It seemed to us his dad fucking buried him. Golly, man. I was like, I understand dad's wanting to be harsh and whatnot. But that was, my guy, chill. Jesus, Lord. Okay. Anyway, you get the idea. I thought he came with what looked to be a great game plan.

He seemed to be in shape to me, you know, whatever that is worth. And, you know, he wanted it. He clearly wanted it. He fought, and he fought to win. Sean Porter fought to win. And depending on your scorecard, you may have had him up by the time the 10th round came around when he got dropped twice, and ultimately his dad calls it. I didn't. I had Crawford up, but certainly through, I think, I had it four rounds to two for Porter through the first six. Through the first six.

But I think seven, eight, nine is when it began to switch. So I'm going to go through the scores here, and I'm going to go through these numbers in just a second, but let's talk about Bud Crawford and what he did. You heard Timothy Bradley talk a little bit about it. For some of the MMA fans who watch this, and you watched this week's Morning Combat Extra Credit, we talked about Dao Woon Jung, right,

and what he was doing, constantly touching with that lead hand. Now, of course, that's an MMA context for an MMA purpose, but what I mean to say is that occupation of the lead hand, he was using it for all kinds of stuff related to his opposite power hand. But one of the things it does, and we mentioned you can pin it because you actually can open with your hand and grab an MMA. But even then in boxing, you can still kind of put a flat palm and pin it to someone else's chest if you want, or just push it back, or put it down. But if someone is in your face like that, like Bud Crawford was, once he had switched stance to southpaw,

when you watch some of the first three rounds where Porter is making entries, look at how he's going high-low, he's mixing it, right, changing rhythms. We talked about it, but it's off all the lead hand. So he would get to look, he would get some defensive work from Bud Crawford, something, get him thinking about it, and then he would get to look, he would get some defensive work from Bud Crawford, something, get him thinking about it, and then he would make his entry behind it. So now, when Bud Crawford switches to southpaw,

and the hand is up, and I can force it in front of you like this constantly, right, you just can't let me get away with that. Now, you can time me, but then you're risking, you know, is the guy doing this to set a trap as well as to gauge distance and everything else? So, you know, you have some choices to make about how you want to handle it but you can't just let him do it right and so you saw uh porter getting a little bit deterred because he was getting his jab essentially taken away from him so he had the starting mechanism just wasn't enough there but i

think what crawford realized and again i'm gonna have to go back and look to really be sure about this but i think what crawford realized at and again, I'm going to have to go back and look to really be sure about this, but I think what Crawford realized at that time was, okay, I'm shutting down his jab, but they were still relatively even-ish in the striking. That's not quite true. Crawford got better over time, significantly after the seventh round, but it wasn't like he was really putting a stamp on him. What the big difference was is, and Bradley was kind of beating him up for it on the broadcast, you actually see Crawford stay in Southpaw, but he actually kind of drops the jab,

or he did it from the jab where it's kind of a flicking up jab. He did that a little bit too, but the big one was the stepping back. He actually realized the best punches he was landing on Porter was when he could get him blitzing with no jab, because Porter had kind of let it go too at that point, and neither was really working a whole lot behind it, and then stepping back and intercepting either with an uppercut hook combo or, you know, some kind of body attack or something like that. That's where the biggest punches for Crawford were really getting

landed. There were some great shots that were happening in other spaces. It wasn't like they were only landing there, but it was consistently pretty good. That was where he could create space and create timing to land quite effectively, especially as Sean, he wasn't blitzing coming in on his

toes this time. He was kind of coming in crouched and he was getting hit overing coming in on his toes this time. He was kind of coming in crouched, and he was getting hit over and over and over and over with it. Also, Bud Crawford, just his ring generalship. Jesus, I mean, he's good. Good Lord, he is. That's a talented guy. That's a really, really, really talented guy that he is able to do that kind of a thing where if Porter came in with some kind of overhand left, he would either step,

sometimes he would lean, but he would throw his own, no, Porter's right. Actually, he might have done it from both sides now that I think about it. He would throw a hook on top of whatever hook Porter was throwing and then use that to either turn himself or at times, uh, Olay his opponent passed him into the corner or whatever he, whatever he needed to do. But you know, you didn't see a lot of times with Crawford shelled up, pressed up against the ropes. There was one round where you saw Crawford shell up like this. I've got to pull my notes up here.

There was one round like that, and I was giving it to Porter because he was kind of giving the round away doing it that way where you're just shelling up. A guy like Porter, when he sees another opponent who is blinding himself with his own gloves and can't see what's coming, he just gets right in front of him and then unloads. There must have been some kind of intentionality about it. All right, so let me pull up my notes here. So I scored it in real time.

Now, some of these rounds were close. So don't kill me if the scorecard's a little bit off from yours. I had 10-9 Porter in the first. I had 10-9 round two for Porter, round three for Porter, round four for Crawford, five for Porter, six for Crawford. So that's the four-two. Seven, I had it for Crawford, eight for Crawford, nine I had it for Crawford, and then by 10 he stopped him. So the second half of that fight, things had really turned. I'm trying to look at some of the notes here about what he had done. Both guys had done some pretty good body work in the latter half of that fight. But yeah, that's really the story of the fight. I mean, from a very sort of basic

perspective here about what the X's and O's were, you know, you heard the dad of Sean Porter describe, like, what makes a guy like Bud Crawford so talented. And he goes, you know, it's not any one thing. It's not like he has the most power or the best footwork or, you know, you name whatever individual skill. He's got the best pull-to-counter, you know, whatever it may be. He's got really good everything. And that is just overwhelming to people. It's just totally overwhelming to his opponents. We always talk about it. It's true in any kind of combat sport,

but it's especially true in boxing where you have 12 rounds, right? There are just certain kinds of guys. Mayweather was one in a very different kind of way, but you see it in other fighters as well. But let's talk about Bud Crawford, where, you know, you got to make a strong account of yourself in the first six rounds, because on the back six, man, it's going to be a very different story

if you even make it the whole back six. You know, Canelo is that way now. Obviously, I mentioned Mayweather, dude. Like, Mayweather, if you didn't win in the first six rounds, it was fucking over for you. Like, there was no way you were going to win the back six. It was just not. I mean, I would like to actually go back and look and see how many fighters got the majority of the back six rounds anytime he went to 12. I'm sure some may have, but it's very, very limited, if any. That's the

kind of guy he was. Dude, that's what Crawford is too, man. If you don't win the first six, inside that, you don't make a strong account of yourself inside that first six, you're donezo. Dude, here's the amazing part about what Sean Porter did tonight. He actually did make a strong account of himself in the first six. Now, maybe you didn't have it 4-2. Maybe you had it 3-3. That's fine. I get that. Totally understandable scorecard. Nevertheless, dude, you can't say that Sean Porter was not very much in that fight the first six rounds. And by some people, probably had him maybe 3-4. In some cases, maybe he even had five rounds. I have to look at the judge's scorecard and see where they were on this night. But you get the idea, dude.

He did really well. He made that push that you're supposed to make inside the first six. And what did it amount to? Yes, okay, his father was intervening. But that shit was headed south in round 10. It was headed south. He's just that guy, man. He's just that guy.

He is extra special. What he can do. How many boxers have you guys seen who are like, hmm, I don't like the way this looks. I'm just going to decide to fight this in a different stance. Now, that by itself is not so impressive.

But against a guy this caliber of opposition and then to still get the stoppage in what may not even be your best stance. You just have that kind of command over boxing where you can just modularly add portions to your game in pieces or strip out what you don't need, right? You just have this entire tool chest about what kind of issue you have with the car you have to repair. And it's just, you can just pick whatever tool you need. It's there or, you know, whatever. I don't need this wrench. Throw it back. That's, that's Bud Crawford. He's fucking, he's Home Depot, man.

You know, like whatever you need, that dude's got it. And, uh, and, And every part of it is quite good. How do you fight that guy? You need somebody else who can either have a style that's so overwhelming that it still kind of just drowns out the ability of Bud Crawford to play the levels, or you have to have somebody who can play the levels with him. I'm not sure at 147 who that is. Now, maybe Spence is the guy who, by the way, himself, quite crafty. Obviously, the demand for that now is going to be, it's not like it's been low, but there's nothing to really move the chains in that direction.

Of course, Spence had eye surgery and we were supposed to fight Pacquiao and it went away and we'll see what happens when he comes back. But is Spence the guy to do that to Bud Crawford, to either overwhelm him with the kind of difficult but sort of singular-ish kind of style? Or can he play the levels with Crawford in the way that he might have to? I think certainly he can do a little bit of both he's got he's you know he might be the well shit dude Terrence you know what hold on before I even say anything that's silly dude Terrence Crawford I mean so he won the WBO belt by beating Jeff Horn in 2018 um the welterweight the welterweight belt excuse me and then he beat uh Benavidez, TKO'd him.

Amir Khan TKO'd him, although that fight was fucking weird. The Dufan Lithuani, whose name is utterly unpronounceable, he TKO'd him. Kell Brook, that was vicious. Granted, past prime Kell Brook, but still. Who's the last guy to make it to a decision with him was Victor Postol. Postol, excuse me. And then before that, not all the way back in 2014, Ray Beltran. Last guy to make it to a decision with him was Victor Postol. Postol, excuse me. And then before that, not all the way back in 2014, Ray Beltran.

Yeah, I mean, this dude is a vicious finisher. Vicious finisher. And especially on this run up at welterweight. You know, obviously he's got lightweight and light welterweight titles to his name as well. But in this weight class, he is fucking people up, man. And that was an impressive showing, you know, to make those kinds of tactical adjustments. If BC was here, I think he'd probably talk to you about where this ranks all time on, you know, Bud Crawford's resume.

Like, what was this? You know, this was a fight that was in some ways a little bit, not accidental, but somewhat unexpected, I should say. And this was the first real test. I mean, listen to the names I mentioned before. Like Amir Khan was a big name, but that fight was terrible, and he got hit in the balls, and it was like, I'm done. And it was just awful in every way.

You know, this is one of the better names, and certainly at this weight class, but by the best name in this weight class, yeah, no know this is one of the better names certainly at this weight class but by the best name in this weight class yeah no this is the best name in this weight class in terms of the relevancy of when he fought them you know and and he is the first person to sort of make history against this guy and again the dad intervened um but it was headed i i don't know if he would have made it 12 rounds man that was look i don't know if he would have made it 12 rounds man that was look i don't know if he would have made it out of the fucking round to be honest with you so let's talk about that stoppage here for just a second i i don't know how you feel about it it seemed a little premature to

me and then they interviewed his dad and his dad fucking buries him man i was like dude pops what are you saying, bro? The dad was like, because I know how he trained. He didn't train hard enough. Like, you got to do better than that. And I was like, you're pun... Like, dude, if... Listen, man, it's a father-son relationship.

Like, what I have to say about it means fuck all, obviously. But why would you punish him? The call about stopping it is made on the terms in which those kinds of calls need to get made, which is health and safety and probably not much else. And even with health and safety, we're talking the limit or preventing worst case scenarios or certainly regrettable ones. Now, as I mentioned, it was headed south. We can all agree. Bud had him on skates twice, and I think there was plenty of time left in the round. In fact, I'd have to look at the timing. I don't have it in front of me, although the CompuBox numbers might have it. They don't. I'm

going to go through these in just a second. But I think there was plenty of time within the round. And in any case, even if it would have made it out, it looked like Crawford. The ninth round was Crawford's best round. He was dealing in that round. He was working behind the jab. The feet were moving. He was staying off the ropes. He was moving Sean Porter around. He was landing at will. He was putting combinations together. Dude, he was fucking dealing that round. So then he comes out in the 10th and knocks him down almost like right away. I think it was almost like right away. It was, it was hell. Okay. But talking about the stoppage. So the dad pulls it and then says like, Oh, I, you know, he, I know how he trained and it wasn't

enough. Blah, blah, blah. It's like, man, I'm not even saying it was like the worst call to pull it. I'm not, I'm definitely not saying that, but like, it's not a good call to do it for that reason. That seems a flimsy ass reason to do it. Like, I'm, I'm displeased with the way you train. So here's me pulling the plug on a title fight. Like, you know, and I'm sure it's, it's that plus the fact that it was going south it wasn't one or the other but like it doesn't the fact of how he trained if you thought he was going to get really hurt maybe that's what he means like oh i know how he trained and this was going to get real bad for him i'm saving him a beating versus i know how he trained and, you know, you just didn't deserve to be in there. It sounded like that. Now maybe he meant it differently. I don't know, but shit, it didn't, it didn't sound like heartwarming. It was not a

touching father, son moment. Like I, you know, father's day, uh, Sean Porter's dad might get kicking the balls or something like that. You know you one, pops, kind of a scenario. All right, here are the total punches for Terrence Crawford, 98 of 328. To the body, it was 28, so 70 landed upstairs. For Sean Porter, just 79, only nine to the body. And that was probably mostly early in the fight. He was headhunting a bit, I guess. Just 23% of those landed overall. Jabs, 33% for Terrence Crawford at 21%. And then just 12% for Sean Porter at 13%. And then for power, 65%, 38% for Terrence Crawford. and then 67 with 26% for Sean Porter. The dominant puncher in terms of the quantitative side, big round for Crawford over Porter in round 4, 10-6.

Porter 13-10 in round 5. Crawford 16-10 in round 6. Crawford 8-6 in round 7. Crawford 14-9 in 8. Crawford 14-10 in round 9, and then 6-0 basically in round 10, and then he put him away there. Unbelievable performance. There is obviously a lot about what this fight means for pound-for-pound rankings. I don't think, given what Canelo just did against Caleb Plant, that a win like this would move him, move Bud Crawford into top position. But it certainly could bolster his case for being the most talented boxer in MMA,

which is very, I mean, all of it is subjective, of course, but that is extremely subjective. Nevertheless, when you look at his ability, I don't think you can match his resume against what Canelo has done. I know Bud Crawford this week was saying like, you know, why haven't I gotten the same kind of Canelo acclaim? I'm just as good. He might be just as good, but the resumes are not as good. And obviously Canelo has a little bit more leeway.

I think this should have been the last fight for Crawford on the top-ranked contract. Although, if I'm wrong, you can dead wrong me on that on the regular MK show. So there is implications there. There's a debate to be had there, certainly, about where he belongs and all of that. Where Sean Porter goes from here, where Bud Crawford goes from here. I'm going to leave most of that to Monday's MK.

I know you might be like, wanting to talk about it now. But don't worry, we will talk about it on Monday. What I wanted to do was, for this post-fight show, typically typically if you're new here, BC would have done this kind of thing. We tend to segregate. He does the boxing stuff and I do the MMA stuff for post-fight. Although we can switch on occasion, this being one of them. So I'm going to stick to my strengths on this one and then keep that kind of conversation for Monday. But they are important ones. They're utterly relevant ones and they're not like this where a guy like Bud Crawford who's been looking for breakout moments against a breakout fighter, or not breakout fighters, breakout moments against proven names. Guys who can draw,

guys who can fight, guys who can do a little bit of both. The kind of thing to bolster his image, the kind of thing to bolster his reputation. All of it together, dude. Sean Porter was that guy. And he made a super strong account of himself on the front half of that fight. But dude, the back half. What you supposed to do with that guy? You know, what are you supposed to do? What could Sean Porter reasonably have done like way better than what he did? Right?

Within the confines of what he is actually capable of doing did he really leave that many stones unturned didn't look that way to me look to me that he gave a very strong account of himself now he should be proud of himself dude all these people like rip on boxers they don't want to fight each other blah blah dude sean porter goes out of his way to fight these guys and as you can, he doesn't always get his hand raised. But he is a fighter through and through, and that was a very strong performance. It's just, dude, you're up against a guy who is special in ways, hard to communicate. He's very, very good.

So plenty more conversation on this. Thumbs up if you're watching. Hit subscribe. I've done two of these today. I hope you liked them. I hope you appreciate them. If not, well, go fuck yourself, because I'm done anyway. But thank you for everyone who watched hope you appreciate them. If not. Well. Go fuck yourself. Because I'm done anyway.

But thank you. For everyone who watched. Share it around. This will be up on the podcast. So listen to this on your podcast platforms. Wherever you may get them. And for everyone else out there. Get some sleep.

Thank you for watching the fights. Until next time. Worst ending ever. I'll see you all later. Bye.