Terence Crawford Obliterates Julius Indongo to Unify the Junior Welterweight Titles

#CrawfordIndongo pic.twitter.com/KtHbbW48nM

— Fancy Combat (@FancyCombat) August 20, 2017

When two undefeated world champions collide to unify all of the belts in a weight class in boxing, it’s about as rare as Haley’s Comet. On Saturday night in Omaha, Nebraska, Terence Crawford put on a performance for the ages as he obliterated Julius Indongo to reign supreme at junior welterweight.

Crawford’s massive punching power and, more importantly his precision accuracy, was too great for the Namibian to overcome. Indongo (22-1, 12 KOs) tried to bang with “Bud” early but it was fruitless. Indongo didn’t have the firepower to compete with his American counterpart and was knocked out in the third.

Crawford (32-0, 23 KOs) wobbled his opponent late in the first with a straight left and then floored him late in the second with a left to the ear that was disguised during a flurry. The Omaha native didn’t pounce on Indongo when the fight resumed and it didn’t matter; a crushing left hook to the liver midway through the third ended the fight. Once it connected, Indongo crumbled in a heap and writhed in agony while referee Jack Reiss counted him out.

The end officially came at 1:38 of the third, allowing Crawford to not only retain his WBC, WBO and Ring Magazine junior welterweight titles, but also added Indongo’s IBF and WBA versions to his collection to send the sold-out Pinnacle Bank Arena into a frenzy.

In the ESPN-televised co-feature, light heavyweight contender Oleksandr Gvozdyk took his time before dispatching Craig Baker. After five relatively uneventful rounds, Gvozdyk (14-0, 12 KOs) sent Baker to the canvas. Gvozdyk, a 2012 Olympic bronze medalist, finished his opponent off with a follow-up barrage, scoring the TKO at 2:04 of the sixth. Baker fell to 17-2 with 13 KOs.

2016 Olympic silver medal winner and featherweight prospect Shakur Stevenson dominated the grossly overmatched David Paz (4-4-1) for six rounds to earn a unanimous decision. Stevenson (3-0, 1 KO) scored a knockdown in the fifth and won via tallies of 60-53 across the board.