Drew Dober has a Terence Crawford story, and it ends with him calling in sick to work.
Ahead of his UFC 334 fight with Chris Duncan, the lightweight veteran went on his YouTube channel and took it back to his early days in Nebraska, when he walked into a boxing gym in North Omaha looking for rounds. His partner that day was a guy everybody called Bud. Dober said he’d never heard of him and figured the session would be “fun and beneficial.” That plan survived roughly as long as the glove touch.
Crawford spotted the southpaw stance right away. “Oh, so you’re a southpaw. I got you,” Dober remembered him saying. Then Crawford switched to southpaw himself and planted a jab on Dober’s face. “My nose started gushing blood immediately,” Dober said. “I was bleeding like a stuck pig in the first 30 seconds of this sparring match.”
According to Essentially Sports, the session lasted barely two rounds, with Crawford timing Dober with fast counters the whole way. Dober came out of it bruised badly enough that he skipped work the next day.
Bud’s Sparring Body Count
The funny part is that Crawford, who has beaten 42 opponents without a loss, has said he stopped sparring outside of camp once he reached a certain level. His reasoning was that “every punch that you take is adding up” and that you feel the effects later. Clearly that caution only applied to the punches coming at him.
Dober joins a long list. Former champ Tim Bradley told BoxingScene that the harder he pushed in their sparring, the harder Crawford fought back, and Bradley’s trainer eventually shut it down before his title fight with Devon Alexander. Shakur Stevenson has said Crawford gave him “the worst a** whooping” of his career. Tiger Johnson and Amir Khan have told similar stories, and Khan’s came after Crawford had already stopped him in Round 6 on April 20, 2019.
Dober’s Run
Dober has fought professionally since 2009 and made his UFC debut on November 30, 2013. His big swing came against Islam Makhachev on March 6, 2021, and it ended in a Round 3 submission loss. Brad Riddell then beat him by unanimous decision a few months later. Dober bounced back by stopping Terrance McKinney, then faced Rafael Alves on the UFC 277 prelims at the American Airlines Center in Dallas on July 30, 2022.
Crawford was sitting front row for that one. With Alves’ head movement giving Dober fits, Crawford started yelling “Go to the body, go to the body.” Dober listened, and he finished Alves with a liver shot in Round 3.
Quick take: Dober is the only guy on this list who walked in with zero idea who he was facing, which somehow makes it the best story of the bunch. Every other name here signed up for the beating. Dober thought he was getting a fun Tuesday workout. Years later, the man who rearranged his nose was yelling cageside instructions that won him a fight, which is about the most Nebraska redemption arc possible. Next up for Dober is Chris Duncan at UFC 334, and if Bud shows up in the front row again, Duncan should probably protect the body.
