Crawford vs Indongo will represent what has become a very rare event in boxing and yet most of the world doesn’t even notice.

A quick admission before starting, women’s pro boxing might have seen a unified champion holding all the legitimate belts in recent years – but this will mark the first time in nearly 11 years men’s pro boxing will.

When WBC/WBO Jr. Junior-Welterweight Champion Terence “Bud” Crawford, 31-0, faces IBF/WBA Champion Julius Indongo, 22-0, it will be a battle to become the first undisputed champion in the sport since Jermain Taylor defeated Bernard Hopkins on December 14, 2006.

It is set to take place in Crawford’s home state of Nebraska at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln. It will be the third event to take place under the new deal between Top Rank and ESPN.

Crawford is coming off of a dominating performance over former Olympic gold medalist Felix Diaz in New York back in May. The Nebraska native was able to stop Diaz in the 10th round.

While Crawford’s recent success has been spectacular, Indongo’s current run may be even more impressive.

The Nambia native has dismantled two world champions in a row with his victories over Eduard Troyanovsky, IBF Champion at the time, and Ricky Burns in a unification fight for the IBF and Burns’ WBA title. Not only did Indongo win impressively but he also did it in each guys backyard, Troyanovsky in Russia and Burns in Scotland.

With this fight being the first time in over a decade the sport will have an undisputed champion, one would think it would be the talk of the boxing world.

That is hardly the case though. Only hardcore fans of pugilistic warfare even knows it’s taking place much less when and where it’s happening.

Boxing fans often complain about the lack of unification fights, too many title belts, too many fights being PPV, and  the best not fighting the best. 

The Crawford/Indongo matchup represents the exact opposite of the “mega event” taking place the following Saturday in Las Vegas when the world’s best P4P boxer risks his perfect record of 49-0 against a guy that’s never even boxed professionally.

So far 2017 has been one of the best years the sport of boxing has seen in quite some time and I for one will not miss out on what has all the ingredients to be an instant classic when the two best 140lbs fighters in the world square off on August 19th. 

Did I mention it’s a complete unification fight? Its the best fighting the best and it’s on “free TV”? Wake up boxing fans because everything you’ve been asking for is only 9 days away!