Kenneth Sims will never forget the first time he sparred with Terence Crawford.
The boxers first met when they were at a USA Nationals amateur boxing event as spectators, “got cool” and began talking. “His girl is from Chicago,” Sims said of the pound-for-pound stalwart, when talking to World Boxing News about his life story, and his friendship with ‘Bud.’
When Crawford was in Chi Town, where Sims is from, he called Kenneth up. “Yo, I’m in Chicago,” Crawford told Sims on the phone.
There was only one thing Sims wanted to do. “You got your training stuff?”
Crawford, of course, was always ready. And so he made his way to the gym, and sparred with Sims. “He whooped my ass!” Sims said of the session.
“I was competitive, though. And he said, ‘You remind me of me,’ because I wanted to get it back. Ever since then, we’ve been cool.”
True to his word, Crawford always hits Sims up whenever he’s back in Chicago. They’d ride around together, talk about boxing, and sports.
“Most of my learnings from him come from boxing him, or him being in the gym with me,” Sims said, fondly. “For the camp I did to fight Elvis Rodriguez, I was with him. I went to Colorado with his team. And he’d pull me to the side to say [positive] things — that he saw me working.
“I was his main sparring partner for his fight with Amir Khan, and we did a lot of rounds together. I learned about myself, and what I’m capable of. He told me to never stop doing this. That I was getting really good. and I could do it with the best of them.”
For many years, it’s Crawford who has proven to be the best of them in the sport’s modern era, having established himself in multiple weight classes as the one guy to beat. The only problem? Nobody ever has.
It all culminated with American boxing’s most meaningful fight event since Deontay Wilder’s trilogy with Tyson Fury when, in 2023, Crawford and Errol Spence Jr. came together for a bout dubbed “The Fight of the Century.”
Many observers World Boxing News spoke to were relatively split heading into the show but, from ringside, it proved to be anything but a 50-50 as Crawford romped to one of the greatest wins the welterweight division had ever seen, bullying, bludgeoning, and beating Spence in an all-time great trashing.
Crawford has fought again since then, defeating Israil Madrimov by decision in August.
But it begs the question whether Crawford can ever replicate that one-sided magic he conjured up in Las Vegas, last year.
“I think he may be able to replicate it, but the shock factor that everybody had, from seeing that, will not be there,” Sims said.
“I think people expect that from him every time. He may even do better. No one will say it was better, because the expectations he’s put out there for himself [are so high]. Nothing now will ever be good enough for people.”
He continued: “It was competitive [against Madrimov], but he was winning most of the rounds. I just think people were coming off of what happened in the Spence fight, and forget it’s boxing, and that you’re in there with another person, and that person’s coming to fight you, and to stop you. Not every fight is going to be the same.”
Crawford is yet to return to the ring but it’s clear that boxing financier Turki Alalshikh, who is arguably as fond of Crawford than he is of any active boxer today, has pushed for ‘Bud’ to box Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez.
Neither fighter currently has an opponent. We just wait to find out who Canelo picks for his return to the ring on Cinco de Mayo weekend in 2025.
“I’d like to see the Canelo fight,” said Sims, before making his prediction: “I’ve seen him in the ring with much bigger guys, so I think he can pull it off.”
Sims was scheduled to fight Saturday against Oscar Duarte on the big Golden Boy Promotions card called Latino Night in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. However, he said on X, formerly Twitter, that he suffered a knee injury, and had to withdraw from the show.
By Alan Dawson