JRE MMA Show #76 with Terence Crawford

Joe Rogan (0:01)

Ladies and gentlemen, one of the best boxers on planet Earth, and his trainer, Bo-Mack and Terence Crawford. Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming here.

Brian McIntyre (0:09)

Thank you, man.

Joe Rogan (0:09)

We're live now.

Terence Crawford (0:10)

Appreciate it, appreciate it.

Joe Rogan (0:11)

Hey man, I'm a big fan of yours. We've talked about you many times on this podcast. I'm a huge fan of the way you switch stances.

You know, you switch stances as smooth as anybody ever. Like, you gotta go back to Marvin Hager to find a champ that switched stances like as fluidly as you. It's pretty impressive stuff, man. Have you always been doing that?

Terence Crawford (0:32)

A lot of practice. Yeah, since I was little, I remember getting in trouble because I used to always switch him. My coach used to always say, you need to worry about fighting the one style first and perfecting that before you try to switch and do a different style.

But I always switched, so it got to the point where it was just like, all right, well, you gonna fight like that, we gonna train like that.

Joe Rogan (0:54)

Wow, so you forced it through.

Terence Crawford (0:57)

Right.

Joe Rogan (0:57)

Wow, now when you first started out, was there anybody that influenced you to switch like that or was it just something you felt naturally?

Terence Crawford (1:03)

It was just naturally. It was just like, all right, this not working, so I gotta do something else.

Joe Rogan (1:08)

Just make it more tricky.

Terence Crawford (1:09)

Right.

Joe Rogan (1:10)

Yeah, well, that's part of what's interesting about watching you fight. Watching you fight is that you could see you trying to figure out what's up. Like, first rounds when you fight is one of my favorite things to watch because I see you measuring dudes, I see things happening and you're switching stances and then when you start finding the timing, it's like timing is one of the more fascinating things to watch about boxing because a guy who has perfect timing and perfect, like, when you see a guy make a read and then execute and it's perfect, it's one of the most beautiful things in all of sports.

Terence Crawford (1:42)

Right, right. It's like you, you know, you're watching they every move and then you're just dissecting them slowly.

Joe Rogan (1:49)

How do you think, do you think about it like when you start a round, a first round of a fight, is it different for every fighter or do you always want to do that? Do you always want to like put them into the computer?

Terence Crawford (2:00)

No, it's different, it's different. Like sometimes I just want to go out there and just be like, all right, I'm gonna see what this dude got, see if he can take it.

Joe Rogan (2:07)

Just go right to him.

Terence Crawford (2:07)

Yeah. And then sometimes I just be like, all right, I'm gonna take my time and, you know, figure him out, see how fast he is, see, you know, what things he like to do and what he don't like to do, or see if I move this way, his reaction, just certain things.

Joe Rogan (2:25)

It's, you know, you came to the UFC this weekend and obviously I love MMA, but one of the things that I love about boxing is when you take away all the elements, you take away wrestling and kicking and all that stuff, you get the highest level of exchanges and punches and you get to see with guys like you, or guys like Canelo or Floyd or the top level boxers, you get to see what's possible with guys that are training with the best scientific methods and with all the knowledge of all the past fighters. I mean, when you were growing up, what was the fighter that influenced you the most?

Terence Crawford (2:58)

Well, hands down Floyd Mayweather and Roy Jones Jr. You know, I used to love watching Roy Jones Jr. I'm pretty sure everybody was a fan of Roy. But set aside Roy, I always watched Floyd Mayweather and Parnell Whitaker.

I was too young for Sugar Ray Leonard and them, so.

Joe Rogan (3:21)

I'm old enough for that.

I was there for the Sugar Ray Leonard days. I was there for Sugar Ray Tommy Hearns, the Sugar Ray Duran. I was there for all that stuff.

Terence Crawford (3:30)

But I watched everything.

When I was young, my coach, Midge Minor, he used to always take me to his house and watch boxing tapes. That was to keep me off the streets and keep me out of trouble until I went to the gym.