The education of Terence Crawford

Editor’s note: This was originally published ahead of Crawford’s fight against Jeff Horn on June 9, 2018. Crawford fights Errol Spence Jr. for the undisputed welterweight championship on July 29.

OMAHA, Neb. — Grover Wiley was 25, six years into a pro career that would see him retire the great Julio Cesar Chavez. Terence Crawford Jr. — “Bud,” as everyone called him — was in junior high.

It wasn’t a fair fight, what their trainer had in mind. It was an exercise designed to break an unhappy child at the cusp of adolescence. Midge Minor, a cantankerous former amateur, could see his talent. But the trainer remained beholden to certain orthodoxies, the most infuriating violation of which was Bud’s mystifying tendency to suddenly turn southpaw. These sparring sessions — a kid paired with an already hardened pro — were to cure him of that.

“I’m trying to rip out his insides,” Wiley recalls. “Crush his ribs.”

Then, as soon as Bud went lefty, Grover threw his most devious combination: a shot to the elbow followed by an uppercut intended to pierce the boy’s solar plexus. Not only did the kid stay southpaw, he seemed gleefully emboldened.

Bud liked to hurt you.

It felt like a ball-peen hammer, Wiley remembers, the knuckle denting his nasal cartilage. More than a decade had passed since Wiley had wandered into the CW Boxing Club. He’d been the only white kid in the gym, and perhaps because of it, never backed down. Wiley conceded nothing … until the day 13-year-old Bud Crawford hit him with that straight left. Then he turned to Midge.