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NEW YORK – Franchon Crews-Dezurn has grown all too accustomed to the game letting her down.
The upcoming showdown with fellow unified super middleweight titlist Elin Cederros has been more than a year in the making for Baltimore’s Crews-Dezurn, who has learned to accept what fate had in store.
“I’m here in the moment and ready to hear that first bell for this fight,” Crews-Dezurn told BoxingScene.com of her super middleweight championship showdown with Cederroos. “Last year when this was supposed to happen, I was ‘here’ too. But they went left and I stayed focused.”
Crews-Dezurn (7-1, 2KOs; 1NC) defends her WBC/WBO belts, while Sweden’s Cederroos (8-0, 4KOs) puts her WBA/IBF belts on the line to crown the first-ever undisputed super middleweight champion in women’s boxing. The fight is one of two undisputed championship fights on Saturday’s show at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Headlining the event, Irish superstar Katie Taylor (20-0, 6KOs) defends her lineal/WBA/WBC/IBF/WBO lightweight titles versus record-setting, seven-division titlist Amanda Serrano (42-1-1, 30KOs).
The fight was originally part of a June 2021 Triller Pay-Per-View card to have been headlined by the Teofimo Lopez Jr.-George Kambosos Jr. lightweight championship in Miami. The card was canceled when Lopez (16-1, 12KOs) tested positive for Covid and was forced to withdraw at the start of fight week. The super middleweight championship was moved to a September TrillerVerz show, only to drop from the bill after it was learned that Cederroos’ travel to the U.S. was never secured by event handlers.
The fallout was the last straw for Crews-Dezurn, who split from Golden Boy Promotions in testing the free agent market. She and Cederroos were both signed by Matchroom in early January, the announcement accompanied by confirmation that an undisputed championship clash was forthcoming.
It all comes after Crews-Dezurn had to spend the start of the pandemic fighting to get back the WBC/WBO titles after Mexico’s Alejandra Jimenez tested positive for a banned substance in their January 2020 clash. The belts were returned to Crews-Dezurn, though she has fought just once since then—an eight-round win in a non-title fight last January in Dallas, Texas.
Cederroos (8-0, 4KOs) has not fought since a January 2020 Showtime-televised win over Alicia Napoleon to unify the WBA/IBF super middleweight titles.
Both believe the fight is now where it belongs.
“This is perfect for us,” admits Crews-Dezurn. “Everything happens in divine order. I just remain patient and follow my course. I’m here where I’m supposed to be.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox