Crolla in mood for big finish
ANTHONY CROLLA insists he won’t pick a patsy for what will likely be the final fight of his career.
The 32-year-old Mancunian, who held the WBA World lightweight title between 2015 and 2016, is set to bring down the curtain with a final farewell in front of his home city fans later this year.
The fight follows his last bid to win a world title — a fourth-round knockout at the hands of WBA Super World and WBO World lightweight champ Vasyl Lomachenko in April.
Crolla said: “I’ll be back out later in the year and there’s a good chance it will be my last fight.
“It will be Manchester Arena. I don’t know any dates yet but it will probably be October, November time.
“It’ll be a decent opponent. I’ve boxed for a number of years at a high level and I don’t believe in going out against an opponent who’ll just be there to be beaten.
“How do I hope to be remembered after the fight?
“As a former world champion, a world-level fighter who beat other world-level fighters as well – a genuine world champion who gave it everything and never ducked anyone.”
Despite reaching the top, mad Manchester United fan Crolla is humble enough to admit that Lomachenko, considered by many to be boxing’s pound-for-pound king, was arguably two levels above him in his last fight.
Crolla added: “It’s hard to say what the one lesson was I took from the fight against Lomachenko.
“Sometimes you just have to be brutally honest and say there are worldlevel fighters, elite fighters and all-time greats, and he is an all-time great, no matter how you look at it.
“The lesson was probably that’s it’s tough against all-time greats.”
Crolla is already working as a trainer and expects to add more fighters to his stable next year once he has hung up his gloves.