Terence Crawford stops Errol Spence Jr. to win undisputed welterweight crown

LAS VEGAS — Terence Crawford dismantled Errol Spence Jr. in a tour de force performance, scoring a ninth-round TKO in the long-awaited super fight to capture the undisputed welterweight championship on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena.

Crawford floored Spence in Round 2 and twice in Round 7, a two-fisted beatdown of Spence to wrest away the IBF, WBA and WBC 147-pound titles to go along with his WBO belt.

Crawford, 35, buckled a blooded and swollen Spence in Round 9 and was unloading unanswered shots when referee Harvey Dock mercifully ended the punishment at 2 minutes, 32 seconds.

Spence protested the stoppage but appeared to lose every round besides the opening frame.

“Like I said before, I only dreamed of being a world champion,” Crawford said in his ring interview. “I’m an overachiever. Nobody believed in me when I was coming up, but I made everybody a believer. And I want to thank Spence and his team, like I told him, because without him none of this would be possible for me.”

Crawford became the first undisputed 147-pound champion in the four-belt era, an achievement he said he was especially proud of.

“It means everything because of who I took the belts from,” Crawford said. “They tried to blackball me, they kept me out, they kept me out. They talked bad about me, they said I wasn’t good enough, that I couldn’t beat these top welterweights, and I just kept my head to the sky and I kept praying to God that I would get the opportunity to show the world who Terence Crawford is. And tonight, I believe I showed how great I am.”