Israil Madrimov says he wants a rematch with Terence Crawford to have the opportunity to reclaim his WBA junior middleweight title from their close 12-round clash earlier this month on August 3.
The judges scored it 115-112, 116-112 and 115-112. It was close.
Madrimov, 29, landed the cleaner, harder punches throughout the fight and looked like he did more than enough to win. However, the judges gave it to the more popular fighter, Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs), based on the jabs he landed. That’s about all Crawford did in the fight.
A close contest with questionable scoring
“I was a world champion, and I deserved to be a world champion after August 3; now, my main goal is to regain that status,” said Madrimov.
Madrimov is unlikely to ever get another chance to fight Crawford, 36, as he is determined to fight Canelo Alvarez at 168.If Crawford can’t get that fight, he might retire unless His Excellency Turki Alalshikh offers him a treasury full of gold to fight one of the 154 pounders.
The August 3 Crawford-Madrimov card reportedly failed to bring in many PPV buys on DAZN, and there were plenty of empty seats on the night of the fight. It’s clear that Crawford is not a draw and needs a popular fighter to hitch a ride on their coattails, as we saw when he fought Errol Spence last year.
“I said after the fight I think I did enough to keep my World Championship belt,” said the 29-year-old Uzbek native. “Right now I’m ready for a rematch with Crawford to regain my title or to challenge any of the other junior middleweight champions.”
“A reunion with Terence Crawford is my goal, but I’m not sure he’s interested now. Our fight still left many questions unanswered,” said Madrimov.
The punishment Madrimov dished out to Crawford will make it highly unlikely that the Nebraska native will ever fight him again or face any of the talented 154-pounders. Madrimov’s best bet to become junior middleweight world champion again is to fight Sebastian Fundora or Bakhram Murtazaliev.
If you’re Turki, it would only make sense to offer Crawford a ton of money if it was against someone he’d be the underdog like Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis, David Benavidez, Artur Beterbiev or Dmitry Bivol. It’s not worth paying Crawford a lot of money to watch him jab and fight carefully. Turki has to lure some of Crawford into fighting one of the aforementioned killers to put him in a situation where he will have to struggle to keep from being knocked out.
Former WBA 154-lb champion Madrimov (10-1-1, 7 KOs) feels he deserved to win that clash at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles.
