Red Spikes: Bud Is Like My Little Brother
When it comes to WBO world welterweight champion Terence “Bud” Crawford (36-0, 27 KO’s), there is no question that he is a dynamic talent. As a highly intelligent, aggressive and switch-hitting fighter, there is not much that Crawford does not excel at in the ring. Outside of the ring however, Bud has been called to account for his oftentimes substandard relationship with the media.
Although, over the past number of months, the WBO champ has exhibited conscious effort to maintain a greater rapport with the boxing press. However, due to his wanton snubbing of many press members in the past, the Nebraskan bruiser still has an established reputation as a poor interview. Yet, his longtime coach and friend Red Spikes insists that there is a reason for his sometimes surly behavior.
SHIFTY BEHAVIOR NOT ALLOWED!!
While conducting an exclusive interview with Lion Killa LC, Spikes explained how there was an extended evolution that got Bud to his current day attitude toward the press. In his opinion, Crawford’s overtly straight forward attitude could not suffer what he thought to be two-faced behavior.
In a number of instances, Bud has witnessed reporters write a scathing piece about him, then later turn around and want to smile and shoot the breeze when in person. For Crawford, this was unacceptable. So rather than cooperate with a body of boxing scribes that he felt were disingenuous, Bud felt that it would be easier to essentially avoid them all together. Luckily for the boxing public, that hard stance has been waning down.
“He is a real dude, like he takes this shit for real. He is emotional with it. And so if it’s an article and you’re talking shit, I mean constructive criticism is one thing. But you know, writers get sideways. And then when they see you in Vegas they want to put the mic in your face – ‘naw, get the fuck out of my face! We not about to play these games’
“He doesn’t play into the media and that bullshit. Whatever you see on camera or whatever you see, if you ever come to Omaha at out gym […] whatever you see in there is what he is, what I am, what Bomac is, Esaú is, that’s what we are. We are who we are and we won’t change for nobody. We got a little success and I want to keep it going.”
While he may have had some turbulent times with the boxing press in the past, let’s hope that Crawford maintains his current pliable working relationships with the reporters of the sweet science.
By: Bakari Simpson
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