{"id":599857,"date":"2026-05-23T13:49:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T13:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/599857\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T13:49:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T13:49:10","slug":"terence-crawford-predicts-shock-on-usyk-vs-rico-verhoeven-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/599857\/","title":{"rendered":"Terence Crawford predicts ‘shock’ on Usyk vs Rico Verhoeven card"},"content":{"rendered":"

Terence Crawford<\/a> believes that Richard Torrez Jr, now trained by Brian \u2018BoMac\u2019 McIntyre, will \u201cshock a lot of people\u201d when he collides with Frank Sanchez.<\/p>\n

The pair are gearing up for an IBF title eliminator this Saturday, featuring on the undercard of Oleksandr Usyk vs Rico Verhoeven at Egypt\u2019s Pyramids of Giza.<\/p>\n

Whoever emerges victorious should then be presented with an eventual world title shot, which could arrive against Usyk if he defeats Verhoeven and chooses to keep defending his heavyweight belt.<\/p>\n

More likely, though, is that the Ukrainian will relinquish his IBF strap, allowing the winner of Torrez-Sanchez to face the next available contender for a vacant title.<\/p>\n

In terms of experience, it must be said that Sanchez boasts a slight advantage, especially when considering his unanimous decision victory over world-ranked contender Efe Ajagba<\/a> in 2021.<\/p>\n

Against Agit Kabayel in May 2024, however, \u2018The Cuban Flash\u2019 seemed far less fluid than usual and ultimately suffered a seventh-round stoppage defeat.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Torrez, the younger man by around seven years, could therefore capitalise on his opponent\u2019s hampered mobility and produce a dominant performance.<\/p>\n

Such an outcome is what Crawford expects to see on Saturday, telling Ring Magazine<\/a> that the Olympic silver medallist could steal the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy to see Richard getting his just [desserts]. I wish him the best and I think he\u2019s gonna shock a lot of people come Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n

This represents Torrez\u2019s first outing with head coach \u2018BoMac\u2019, who most notably guided Crawford to three-division undisputed status.<\/p>\n

Most significantly, the American scored a wide points victory over Guido Vianello<\/a> in April 2025, but now arguably faces his toughest professional challenge against Sanchez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Terence Crawford believes that Richard Torrez Jr, now trained by Brian \u2018BoMac\u2019 McIntyre, will \u201cshock a lot of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-599857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}