OUTSTANDING
GOOD
FAIR
DISAPPOINTING
RUBBISH
Reporters’ star ratings for main events and undercards are based on in-ring entertainment, competitiveness and whether overall expectation was met
Elliot Worsell
@ElliotWorsell
RINGSIDE
LAS VEGAS
MAY 20
MAIN EVENT
UNDERCARD
ATMOSPHERE
IN a town in which the Statue of Liberty is an imitation, the Eiffel Tower is an imitation, and the Elvis you see cruising the Strip on a mobility scooter will happily lie to your face, there is often a yearning for something authentic and truthful. And yet, in Las Vegas,, sometimes even ‘The Truth’ is not the truth.
This became clear, abundantly so, during round two of the welterweight title fight between Errol ‘The Truth’ Spence and Terence Crawford, who brought new meaning to the word when stopping Spence at the 2:32 mark of round nine.
For in the end it was Crawford, from Omaha, Nebraska, who provided the transparency and honesty – of the brutal variety – we all associate with truth. It was also Crawford who, after finding his feet in round one, served this honesty to Spence in the most savage way possible, sparing him any heart-to-heart and instead going straight for it: both the truth and Spence’s heart. By the fight’s halfway mark, in fact, Spence’s heart had been broken, having discovered a truth greater than his own, and by the time round nine came along, its pieces were pretty much all the bloodied and battered Texan had left. By then, you see, his ambition was gone, his confidence was shattered and his soul had been stolen.
Masterful Terence Crawford shows us that in Las Vegas even ‘The Truth’ is an illusion
That’s the truth.
Indeed, although rarely are a fighter’s last words ever telling, in this case they were. Asked, the pair of them, on Friday at the weigh-in what they needed to do to remain unbeaten and defeat their closest rival, Spence and Crawford both provided the same answer, one as profound as it was simple. “By being myself,” Crawford said that day, shortly after which Spence, when asked the exact same question, said, “Be
