LAS VEGAS – Cody Crowley’s hands were wrapped, gloves slid on, and he went through his usual routine. The Canadian was brought to this Las Vegas gym to be a sparring partner, just like he’d done for Chris Algeri a few months back.
Algeri had used him, wanting an athletic southpaw, to prep for Manny Pacquiao. The call then came in the new year to do the same with a new fighter.
“Just another day,” he told himself. Then, he exhaled and his knees went weak.
“I did get a little bit star struck,” Crowley admits this week, now able to grin when remembering the moment. “I looked across and it was Floyd Mayweather. And I realized I’m standing in a box with the greatest fighter in the planet with these,” Crowley said while lifting his fists.
“And I wondered: ‘How am I going to fight my way out of this one?'”
On Saturday, at last, Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao duel here at MGM Grand Garden Arena. And in the lead-up to the most anticipated fight in a generation, it was the undefeated champion hiring a 22-year-old from Peterborough, Ont., to be his sparring partner for his entire eight-week training camp.
“They gave me a chance,” Crowley says, “and we went to work.”
Crowley has done exactly that since deciding team sports weren’t for him during his adolescence. He was a kid who grew up playing hockey, “and I’d work my ass off, and do everything I could for the team, and our team would lose, and I’d sit there in the dressing room after, and wonder ‘why is this happening?'” he says.
One summer, during the hockey off-season, he was introduced to kickboxing, and he fell in love with it. With the individual competition, with the one-on-one combat, with knowing he was fully accountable for the end-result. He transitioned to boxing, and gave up hockey. Crowley was a natural, and started getting results.
“It gave me confidence in high school,” he says. “I had the bad guy persona and it made me popular with the girls.”
In 2011, he took bronze at the Youth Commonwealth Games in the 75-kg division. A gold medal followed at the Canada Winter Games. He won another gold in Ontario Youth Boxing.
“I told myself, when I graduated high school, I’d be moving to Vegas. And then I did.”
And then came the moment in March when he found himself, eye-to-eye with Mayweather, and it all became real. He looked down at the 38-year-old’s entourage around the ring, and the red lights on the cameras rolling, and his nerves fired, and just as he was about to ask himself how he was going to get out of this mess again, the bell rang and he snapped out of it.
“My fighter mentality kicked in,” Crowley says.
And the kid from Peterborough, some 15 months removed from the full-time move to Vegas, began sparring with Mayweather to prep the champ for the Fight of the Century.
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“When I fell in love with boxing, it was all on me,” Crowley says. “That hunger to always win, and that drive, was all on me. And that made me go search out more.”
Which is how he ended up here on a hot Nevada Wednesday, in a warehouse 50 yards behind a family home, about 20 minutes from the Las Vegas strip.
Crowley arrives at 9:30 a.m. for a two-hour workout, warming up on his own for 15 minutes before his trainer, Ibn Cason, arrives and they go to work. The emphasis is on technique and detail: placement of the right foot on the attack, how to handle the opponent when they’re on the ropes, extension on the left hand that keeps popping jabs. Drake’s new album, If you’re reading this, it’s too late, blares. Sweat pours.
Jab, jab, jab.
Pop, pop, pop.
When he arrived in Sin City last January, Crowley thought he had boxing all figured out. He was successful in Canada and was in the best shape of his life. Then, he visited with coaches in Vegas and they broke him down completely in the first month.
“Forget almost everything you’ve learned,” they told him. Philosophically, cut the punches in half, hit twice as hard.
“The training, the coaching, everything is elevated to a totally different level,” Crowley says.
It took four months before he was noticed. His break came in May of 2014. Bob Arum — yes, that Bob Arum — signed him to a five-year deal with Top Rank Boxing, one of the game’s elite promoters. That’s when Cason, who happens to be the brother of former heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman, appeared in the picture.
“He’s got a lot to learn,” Cason said to himself when he first eyeballed a then 20-year-old Crowley. “But the mold is there.”
Cason, who went to college in Cornwall, Ont., just a few hours down the road from Cody’s hometown, liked Crowley’s energy. “Felt good vibes” with him, he said.
Crowley’s pro debut came last June. He’s 3-0 with two knockouts and is working on a fourth date, but for the past eight weeks, day and night, he’s been on-call to spar with Mayweather. Once, the call came at one in the morning. Crowley got out of bed, grabbed his gloves, and jumped into the ring.
Crowley is there to mimic Pacquiao’s style, just like he’d done for Algeri. Throw a ton of punches, show off the speed and even some of Manny’s awkward angles.
Mayweather’s been quiet in the lead-up to meeting Pacquiao, but not in the comfort of his gym, his headquarters, around his people. Crowley would get in the ring, and the champ was ready — to rock, and to chirp.
“Uh, uh, Cody. You can’t hit me Cody … I’m the man, Cody … There’s one, I’ll give you that one, Cody.”
At one of those sparring sessions, a member of Crowley’s camp, Marcus Sgrizzi, bellowed: “Come on, Cody! He’s just a man.”
Mayweather stopped in his tracks, looked down at Sgrizzi and roared, “I’m no man! I’m the world champ! This is a man in front of me. He can’t do anything to me.” And Crowley and Mayweather chuckled, then got back to work.
Crowley has grand aspirations for his career: becoming a world champion in multiple weight classes and winning different unified belts.
“I’m not going to stop until I’m on top,” he says. “I just want to be known as one of the best.”
And by working with Mayweather?
“It’s speeding up the progress to becoming a better boxer,” says Cason. “He’s maturing at a faster level.”
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On Friday afternoon, the more than 10,000 fans that bought tickets to watch the Mayweather-Pacquiao weigh-in will show up hours before the five-minute proceeding at MGM. Forbes Magazine reports those weigh-in tickets have a higher secondary market premium than the actual fight.
A year ago, Crowley would have been one of those trying to land a seat from a scalper. Hoping to steal a glimpse, wanting to get a taste of the biggest stage in his sport.
Instead, Crowley will be part of the Mayweather entourage on that stage. Floyd is bringing him along for the festivities — the preparation, the late night calls, the in-ring trash talk, all now complete.
“I came out successful, and now eight weeks later I’m a totally different fighter,” says Crowley. “My mentality’s changed. After sparring with Floyd Mayweather, I feel like I can step in the ring with anyone in the world.”
