Terence Crawford and Amir Khan are good to go for tomorrow night’s ESPN pay-per-view main event, with both making weight for the WBO welterweight title bout, with Crawford defending his title.
Crawford (34-0, 25 KO) weighed in at 146.4, slightly above what Khan (33-4, 20 KO) was at at 146, both of them below the 147-pound limit.
Speaking with ESPN’s Mark Kriegel, Khan again stressed that unlike his ill-fated 155-pound catchweight challenge against Canelo Alvarez in 2016, he won’t be the dramatically smaller man in this fight.
“This means everything to me and my career. I’ve worked very hard for this,” he said. “The Canelo fight, you know, I was doing well in the fight. He was just too big, physically. This is my opportunity. This is my time. I’m gonna grab it with both hands.”
Asked how he could pull what would be a massive upset, Khan said all the right things, as he generally does.
“It’s all about being smart, sticking to a game plan,” he said. “Virgil Hunter has given me a great game plan to follow. I have to stick to that throughout the whole fight. I have to be one step ahead of him.”
For Crawford, the massive favorite, he said this fight is about proving he’s the best fighter in the world at 147 pounds. A man of generally very few words, Crawford had short answers for questions posed by Bernardo Osuna.
Asked about Khan’s strengths, he said, “He’s fast, he boxes real well, he’s got good legs.”
“I want to put on a great performance,” Crawford said. “I’m just ready to go out there and display my talent.”
Lightweight super prospect Teofimo Lopez (12-0, 10 KO) and former European champ Edis Tatli (31-2, 10 KO) weighed in at 135 and 134.8, respectively.
Top featherweight prospect Shakur Stevenson (10-0, 6 KO) takes a step up in competition against Christopher Diaz (24-1, 16 KO). The two made weight, with Stevenson coming in at 125.8 and Diaz at 125.6.
The fight expected to be the most competitive on paper is the pay-per-view opener between Felix Verdejo (24-1, 16 KO) and Bryan Vasquez (37-3, 20 KO). Verdejo was once every bit as celebrated a prospect as Lopez or Stevenson, but his buzz is gone following some mediocre performances and a TKO loss 13 months ago to Antonio Lozada Jr. He tries to get back on track against Vasquez, a good and tough pro fighter. Lopez weighed in at 135, with Vasquez slightly over the lightweight limit of 135.4, but this isn’t a title fight and there’s usually some leeway there.
The fights go live on ESPN pay-per-view tomorrow night at 9 pm ET, with prelim bouts beginning at 6 pm ET on ESPN2.