WBO orders Crawford to face Rocha
The WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford will have to defend his belt against Alexis Rocha, as both boxers’ camps ordered to come to an agreement.
A few weeks ago the World Boxing Organization (WBO) ordered the clash to go ahead between Josh Taylor (19-0-0, 13 KO) and Teófimo López (18-1-0, 13 KO) for the Light welterweight belt. Now Terence Crawford (39-0-0, 30 KO) has been told to make a mandatory defense of his welterweight title against contender Alexis Rocha (22-1-0, 14 KO). The two teams will have 20 days to reach an agreement or the fight will go to purse bids.
Crawford’s last mandatory defense came against Shawn Porter (31-4-1, 17 KOs) way back in November 2021 in Las Vegas. He prevailed by 10th round TKO after Porter’s corner refused to send their boxer out after two knockdowns. In December of last year, Crawford faced Russian boxer David Avanesyan (29-4-1, 17 KO) and added another KO to his unblemished record.
This is not the clash that the public want to see, just as with Avanesyan. Fans are clamoring for unification bout between Crawford and Errol Spence Jr. (28-0-0, 22 KOs). Crawford is the WBO’s champion, while Spence holds the CMB, WBA, and IBF belts, in addition to both fighters having impeccable records. This makes a bout between the two very attractive. Both blame each other for the unification fight not taking place. Crawford said that Spence “doesn’t want to box as much” as he does, but Errol counters that it is Crawford who “has been stuck”.
There is no news of any progress on this possible meeting, so the WBO insists that Crawford continues on his way. Since his contract ended with Top Rank, Crawford is a free agent. His last fight was with BLK Prime Boxing. Alexis Rocha is with Óscar de La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions.
Rocha has only lost one fight, a unanimous decision in October 2020 to Rashidi Ellis (24-1-0, 15 KO) for the WBO Intercontinental Welterweight title. Rocha’s last fight was a knockout win in the seventh round against the Ghanaian George Ashie (33-6-1, 25 KO).
While this matchup is not everyone’s cup of tea, we can only hope that Rocha will give Crawford a good workout, but we can only wait and see.