Stephen A. Smith Settles Terence Crawford And Floyd Mayweather Debate With One Key Point

Stephen A. Smith Weighs In on Terence Crawford, Floyd Mayweather Debate

Sports media juggernaut Stephen A. Smith was interviewed by FightHype moments after the Crawford vs. Canelo fight ended, and offered several strong opinions about what he just witnessed.

"I'm not surprised. I took [Crawford] to win by decision coming into the fight. Watching Canelo in his career, it was expected that he wasn't gonna get knocked out, especially by the smaller man. But did Crawford have enough power and boxing skills to keep Canelo off of him to some degree? For the most part, that answer was yes," Smith said, per a video on FightHype's YouTube.

"But then [Crawford] stepped in there, and he exchanged on several occasions, and survivved, and prospered. And I gotta give credit where credit is due," Smith added. "I expected the boxing superiority, but what I didn't expect was for him to stand in there and exchange, and survive. And he did that on several occasions, and that's why he deseres so much credit."

Smith was then asked whether Crawford is better than Floyd Mayweather and offered an interesting response.

"I'm not gonna sit up here and say that. I think that Floyd Mayweather was such a magician defensively. You have to look at Floyd 'Money' Mayweather in this regard: Once he moved up to welterweight, his hands were always damaged. So he kinda knew he wasn't gonna be able to knock you out, for the most part. And still, he walked into the ring and put on masterful performances because he was so superior, skill-wise and defensively."

"Tonight, with Crawford, we saw him take a punch on several occasions. With Floyd, we didn't see that too often because you couldn't hit him. That's the difference," he concluded.

It will be interesting to see the reaction to Smith's sentiment.