Crews-Dezurn is the reigning World Boxing Council tremendous middleweight champion. She stopped Kayla Williams on Thursday night time in the fifth round of a non-title bout on the Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City, N.J., enhancing to five-1 and winning her 5th directly bout in view that losing her debut. And she later agreed to be represented by Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions.
“It’s every other bankruptcy in my adventure,” she stated. “To be with this organization may be very prestigious. They’re certainly one of the largest promotional groups in boxing. So I experience like they suit my style.”
In an ironic twist, Crews-Dezarn’s street to the championship belt became made feasible through Golden Boy Promotions, which reached out to Crews-Dezurn — nicknamed “The Heavy-Hitting Diva” — to combat the employer’s Maricela “La Diva” Cornejo for the vacant WBC crown. After Crews-Dezurn beat Cornejo (thirteen-3) by using majority choice in 10 rounds Sept. Thirteen, Golden Boy initiated talks with Crews-Dezurn and her team. Those negotiations resumed in January and intensified in April.
“I’ve always been very proactive in my career — backstage and on the scene,” she stated. “If you look at the primary fight I took towards Claressa Shields [in November 2016], she was clean off of her 2d Olympic [gold] medal, and he or she had a number of hype in the back of her. So, me taking that combat, that’s been my notion in what I can do. I just wished a platform.
“I’ve always been a pinnacle-skills fighter. I just wanted a platform. So once I had an opportunity to combat their fighter and that they ran my resume … they have been like, ‘Whoa. OK, this lady is good.’ But I changed into still the underdog. But after the combat, they had been interested, and the celebs simply aligned. I become in the proper region on the proper time.”
Crews-Dezurn, whose husband Glenn Dezurn is a wonderful-bantamweight boxer with a nine-2-1 record, said she agreed to a -12 months deal with an option for an extension if she wins some other title.
De La Hoya, whose enterprise announced inking Crews-Dezurn on June eleven, did no longer return requests for remark, but boasted in an information launch that “another international champion has joined our exquisite solid.”
“But Franchón Crews-Dezurn is unique due to the fact she is a renaissance lady,” stated De La Hoya, the Golden Boy Promotions’ chairman and chief government officer. “Aside from being the WBC terrific middleweight global champion, she is likewise a talented singer, songwriter, fashion designer, and motivational speaker. She will absolutely additionally be our ambassador as we maintain to open up more opportunities for ladies in the sport of boxing.”
Added former middleweight and mild heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins, who is De La Hoya’s commercial enterprise associate: “I accept as true with that she will someday be the unified champion. We are looking forward to her showing the world that she has all the substances to become an undisputed international champion.”
