“It gives me purpose and makes me want to strive to be the best at it, you know? I just want to give it my all.”
Crawford’s map to finding that calling was something of an eye-opener. Always ready to stand up for himself, he admits fighting got him into the odd spot of trouble in his days in the school yard.
That desire to stand up for himself led him to a boxing gym, before he tried his hand at kickboxing with some friends.
He was put in his place very quickly.
“I thought I was tough and whatnot, but yeah, quickly got humbled when I started training.”
But the young Waikato athlete “fell in love with it” and, moving from Te Aroha to Morrinsville to join Freestyle Fight Club, began to compete inside the ring.
Crawford-Williams is among a group of talented young fighters in the Waikato region beginning to make their mark on the local scene, alongside the likes of Titus Proctor, Michael Isaac, and Ethan Brockett.
“We’re all just hungry, I guess,” Crawford-Williams says of the rising talent in the region.
“The small towns, I feel like just don’t get as much attraction as the big cities, so it’s cool to get a little bit of exposure.”
Earlier this year, he made his debut in the King in the Ring eight-man elimination tournament, where he progressed through to the final before losing to former UFC fighter Blood Diamond. It was Crawford-Williams’ first loss in 16 bouts.
“I can take away a lot [from that], like my composure. I feel like I lost my composure a little bit in the final, you know, got a little bit messy, could have gotten myself into danger I didn’t really need to get myself into.
“I just made it a bit of a scrap, but everyone loved it. I’m here, I want to put on a show for everyone, so it was cool. It was a good experience.”
On Saturday, Crawford-Williams will make his debut in a mixed-rules bout when he squares off against Mandela Ale on the Arsenal X card. The first round will be contested under boxing rules, K1 kickboxing rules in the second, before a third round of Muay Thai if required.
It will provide a different challenge for the athletes, but one that presents an opportunity to showcase their range of striking.
For now, that is the goal for the young Waikato fighter. While he’d like to turn his hand to mixed martial arts at some point in the future, he said his goal first and foremost is to master his striking style.
“Mixed martial arts is definitely like the route I want to go down. Like, I want to be one of the best fighters across all codes. I don’t want to just miss out on a whole part of martial arts, so I want to learn it all and be one of the best fighters.”
It’s to his benefit, in that sense, that New Zealand’s combat sports scene has plenty of opportunities for local talent to showcase their skills on, whatever their preferred discipline may be.
“You’ve got Israel Adesanya and stuff, who have boosted the MMA scene like hard out, so it’s cool that it’s got a bit more of a spotlight because there’s people like me that aren’t really good at much else,” Crawford-Williams says.
“It’s like watching Gladiators back in the day, like, it’s the sport everyone wants to see. It’s just action-packed, it’s not like a cricket or something, it’s straight on the go.”
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.
