Pound-for-pound boxing standout Terence Crawford reacts to the ugly aftermath of UFC 229.
This weekend marks a homecoming title defense for WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford (33-0, 24 KOs), as the Nebraska native will take on Jose Benavidez Jr (27-0, 18 KOs) on an ESPN-televised card in Omaha.
“Bud” has been making the media rounds for fight week, including on ESPN’s First Take, and they brought up the UFC 229 main event between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor, as well as the subsequent post-fight melee. Crawford was asked for his thoughts on Khabib’s actions, and evidently he enjoyed it.
“Oh man I loved it,” Crawford said. “I actually tweeted after that fight, and I was asking everybody why they’re mad at him. When a guy talks as much as Conor was talking about him and actually threw something at the guy’s bus and hurt [people], of course it’s going to be personal. They should’ve expected that.”
“I was laughing. It was crazy to me because it was just like ‘Whoa, I ain’t ever seen nothing like that,’” he added.
Those tweets he referenced are below.
Why everyone so mad Conor was talking and acting like he was bout that life
— Terence Crawford (@budcrawford402) October 7, 2018
I’m bout to go fight in the UFC fuck it!!! ???
— Terence Crawford (@budcrawford402) October 8, 2018
He also doesn’t believe McGregor deserves a rematch.
“It’s going to end up the same way. He didn’t have [anything] coming for him, so no.”
Well it looks as if Crawford has his own beef with his opponent, Jose Benavidez Jr, who called him out after his most recent win. Their bad blood was even caught on camera back in February. At Wednesday’s open workout day, Crawford got into it some more with Benavidez, although it didn’t lead to a massive brawl.
As it turns out, Thursday’s press conference will have a few extra authorities.
I’m hosting tomorrow’s #CrawfordBenavidez press conference and was told extra security would be present. Can’t remember the last fight week that I had to think about that. On another note, I feel like I’m not really going to need much in terms of questions though lol
— Crystina Poncher (@CrystinaPoncher) October 10, 2018
When Crawford knocked out Dierry Jean in 2015, he admitted tension between him and Jean’s camp in the post-fight interview, leading to the ever-quotable line: “Did you get what you was looking for?”
Bloody Elbow will have coverage of Crawford vs. Benavidez Jr on Saturday, October 13th starting at 10:30 PM ET.