By Dan Ambrose: In a sign that they may feel WBO lightweight champion Terence Crawford isn’t ready for to test his skills against the equally large light welterweights like Lucas Matthysse and Ruslan Provodnikov, Crawford’s manager Cameron Dunkin said to Fightnews.com that Crawford may stay at lightweight because he still is able to make weight in the division.
Dunkin is leaving it up to Crawford to make the decision whether to move up in weight or stay where he’s at. But with Dunkin seeing Crawford as still able to make the weight, it’s likely that Crawford will stay at lightweight rather than move up to 140 and face guys with bigger power and size than what’s become accustomed to facing.
Top Rank matchmaker Brad Goodman is saying that Raymundo Beltran or Juan Diaz would be good matches for Crawford to fight at lightweight. Diaz is a former IBF/WBA/WBO lightweight champion, but who retired from boxing in 2010 after losses to Juan Manuel Marquez [x2], Paulie Malignaggi and Nate Campbell. After three years out of the game, Diaz came back in April of 2013, and has won his last 4 fights, albeit against weak opposition.
Diaz has looked good, but not to the level he was at earlier in his career. If Crawford were to face Diaz, it would be a fight to build Crawford up with the casual boxing fans, who would be attracted by Diaz’s name, but who might not be aware that this isn’t the same Diaz from many years ago. Matching Crawford against #4 WBC Diaz would be about building Crawford’s name, but not about building him as a fighter. He’d arguably get much more out of fighting #3 WBO Jorge Linares than he would Diaz, because Linares has stayed busy recently and is fighting at a high level right now. Linares, 5’8 1/2,” is taller than the 5’6” Diaz and would bring much of a problem to Crawford than Diaz would.
Beltran’s claim to fame is being robbed last September in his title fight against former WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns. Beltran broke Burns’ jaw with a left hook in the 2nd round, and knocked him down with a left hook in the 8th. However, the judges scored it a 12 round draw despite Beltran winning most of the round easily. Beltran did a better job against Burns than Crawford did in beating him.
If Crawford does choose to stay at lightweight, he could find himself fighting there for quite some time if Top Rank keeps working him through the top fighters in the division. There’s at least 10 fighters in the division that Crawford will need to beat before he’s cleaned out the entire division, and that could take another 3-4 years, depending on whether the list grows with the addition of younger fighters coming up. In the meantime, Crawford will miss out on fights against the likes of Manny Pacquiao and Chris Algieri at 140 or 147.
Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti says that a fight between Crawford and WBO super featherweight champion Mikey Garcia is dead in the water because Mikey doesn’t want the fight. Also, IBF lightweight champion Miguel Vazquez is now with Al Haymon, so that’s a fight that can’t happen as well.
So what we have here for Crawford is a bunch of low level fights that probably will be a step down from his fight against Gamboa. At least with Gamboa, he had the kind of talent to make it interesting against the bigger Crawford. But with him facing guys like Beltran, Juan Diaz, and the other top contenders, Crawford’s fights likely won’t bring as much attention unless he moves up to the light welterweight division. It’ll be risky for him to move up in weight, to be sure, because he’ll no longer have a huge size advantage over his opponents, but then he’ll get a chance to prove to fans that he can win on his boxing skills rather than his size.
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