By: William Holmes
It’s common for HBO to broadcast the main event of a pay per view fight the week after a pay per view, but it’s rare to see an HBO broadcast show two fights from a pay per view the week before.
Roman Gonzalez’s victory over Brian Viloria and Gennady Golovkin’s mauling of David Lemieux were televised prior to the start of the main event of the night. Both Golovkin and Gonzalez are on most pundit’s pound for pound list.
Terence Crawford (26-0) met Dierry Jean (29-1) in the lone live televised bout of the night for Crawford’s WBO Junior Welterweight Title.
This bout was being fought in Crawford’s hometown of Omaha, Nebraska and Jean lost the last time he had a televised fight from the United States.
Dierry Jean entered the ring first and was met with a chorus of boos and Crawford was greeted warmly by his hometown fans.
Crawford had the age, reach, and height advantage over Jean.
Crawford was fighting for a chance to fight Manny Pacquiao, who just announced that will retire in April to focus on his political career.
Crawford was patient at the start of the first round and fought out of an orthodox stance. They exchanged jabs throughout and Jean was able to connect with a crisp straight right hand, but Crawford was the more active fighter. Crawford scored a knockdown at the end of the round with a straight left right hook combination. Jean was able to beat the count.
Crawford came out patient in the second round and remained in a southpaw stance. Jean was short with his punches and Crawford was able to touch Jean at will with his jab. Crawford had Jean on wobbly legs at the end of the round with a crisp combination.
Crawford peppered Jean with his jab in the third round and constantly had him moving backwards. Crawford was more aggressive in the fourth round when he got Jean trapped near the ropes, and he cracked Jean with straight lefts and body shots whenever Jean paused by the ropes.
Crawford dominated the fifth round and opened up a cut over the right eye of Dierry Jean from one of his many hard combinations. Crawford started off the sixth round in a southpaw stance, but then momentarily switched to an orthodox stance and had Jean hurt with a right uppercut and straight rights and lefts by the ropes, and then switched back to a southpaw stance and kept Jean at bay.
The seventh round was a slower paced round, but it was still dominated by Crawford. Crawford started off the eighth round well, but Jean was able to connect with two thunderous right hooks that caught Crawford by surprise, but he took those punches well.
Crawford scored his second knockdown of the fight at the end of the ninth round with a straight right hand that sent Jean to the mat. Jean was immediately complaining about being hit behind the head, but it landed as Jean had turned his head partially around and appeared to be going down anyway.
Crawford came out aggressively at the start of the tenth round and pummeled Jean from corner to corner, and the referee looked like he was going to stop it early on in the round. Jean was able to circle away and tried to stay out of harm’s way, but Crawford was relentless with his attacks and hurt Jean again with a straight left hand that sent Jean down and sitting on the bottom ropes before the referee jumped in and stop the fight.
Terence Crawford wins by TKO at 2:30 of the tenth round.