September 16, 2025
Terence Crawford’s Mom Criticized Over Harsh Parenting Confessions
Fans are divided over Terrence Crawford's admission of the tough love he received from his mom growing up.
Following his victory over Canelo Alvarez, Terence Crawford is drawing new attention for revelations about the tough love from his mother that fueled his rise in boxing.
Raised in Omaha, Nebraska, by his parents, Debbie and Terence Sr., alongside his sisters, Latisha and Shawntay, Crawford admits he was a troublemaker who was expelled from five schools and gained a reputation for fighting. In a recent interview with Piers Morgan ahead of his fight with Canelo, he defended his mother after Morgan pressed him about her past admissions, disciplining him with whippings and even paying bullies to fight him.
“I used to get whoopings because I was bad. It’s a part of discipline,” Crawford said. “Ain’t nothing wrong with disciplining your kids when they’re not following directions and when they’re not listening.”
As for the bullies she paid to fight her son, Crawford explained that his mother’s decision stemmed from her own upbringing around boxers and her desire to toughen him up — something he now believes ultimately worked in his favor.
“I think it was more a competitive nature in her,” he explained. “Her brother was a boxer, her dad was a boxer, my dad’s dad was a boxer, my uncles were boxers. So she came from a boxing family, she grew up in the boxing gym.”
Crawford continued, “So me being a little bad kid running around not listening, she’d be like, ‘Alright, let me see how bad you is. I’m gonna pay this little kid see if he can whoop you.’ It was things like that, but I’d whoop them every time.”
Amid the admission, video quickly resurfaced of Crawford’s 2018 feature where ESPN’s Mark Kriegel sat down with his mom and had her explain her rhetoric on paying bullies to fight her son, which she partially credits for his current success.
“He did good because he was around here beating up everybody in the neighborhood,” Debbie said in a clip