Tyler R. Tynes: Terence 'Bud' Crawford finally gets to face Errol Spence Jr. and prove he's no B-side
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Deep in the eastern shoe of the Rockies, at the foot of Pikes Peak about 70 miles from Denver, the champion descended the stairs of his heartland-inspired camp house — ambling past fitted hats from decades ago, tiptoeing through exoskeletons of go-karts he'd been tinkering with and old Everlast gear hugging pounds of dog food. His eyes were barely open, yawns still sticking to the scruff of his swollen beard, but he knew there was work to do. Even if it required his father, "Big T," to bang on the champ's door — in scarlet and cream 'Huskers pajamas no less — to get him going.
It'd been a few years since Bud and the boys got crackin' from the base of the Cheyenne Mountain in this humble home. But it was something about the being in the elevation that soothed the champ whenever a fight drew near. Ever since his bronze in the nationals 16 years ago as an amateur: working in that crisp and colorful Colorado air, sweating in the gym and shadowboxing in the Garden of the Gods proved to be a key asset in making Terence "Bud" Crawford bulletproof.
Though, it wasn't like Bud needed any convincing for this fight.
All he could do was smile — that playful, elegant gap-toothed grin of his — when he thought about what was at stake, what he fought for the last five years to attain; past broken promises from promoters and punches to his resume, no matter how many opponents he plowed through.
What he and every other fan of boxing around the world wanted to see was finally happening. He no longer had to lie to his kids about when there would be a date to something impossible; his trainers didn't need to reign themselves in when folk asked when the dance was on. The pound-for-pound, undefeated, baddest man in the land believed he would walk out of Vegas on Saturday victorious, not just the king of the sport and first man ever to be an undisputed champ at two divisions in the four-belt era; but also a proud piscator after he guts the "Big Fish" Errol Spence Jr. in a title fight some of us merely dream of witnessing.
So, at dusk, we crept into the fog.
Bud hopped into a giant, blacked-out Chevy pickup and zoomed from his driveway with a cadre of his crew. In a more beaten-up Toyota: Esau "Tuto" Dieguez and Bernard "Bernie" Davis — two of Bud's longtime confidants and trainers — jumped into the whip while Bud's head man, Brian "BoMac" McIntyre, kept us close to the champ's bumper.
BoMac planted his foot on the gas and swung us out of the compound, speeding through the lazy vapors around the boulders and playgrounds that mule deer graze at in the summer mornings. Bothered by how sleepy the neighborhood was that morning, Bud's bucolic trainer cranked the stereo to the max, unstrapped his seat belt and bent the driver's seat back so he could ride a bit dirtier. On came a street anthem from Jeezy and DJ Drama from their 2022 album SNOFALL, "I Ain't Gon' Hold Ya," that felt fitting for Bud's pursuit to the top; it kept the whip groovin' all the way to the top of Gold Camp Road.
Around the end of one trailhead, Bud parked the pickup, quickly stretched and began to take on the six-mile trail at 7,000 feet elevation that creeped up the mountain, inch by soul-stealing inch. Bud proceeded at a trot while BoMac paced him from the car behind. Another coach drove the pickup in front of him as we crawled around Colorado, left and right, ripping up the road.
