Crawford not likely to get Danny Garcia fight

By Boxing News - 08/13/2016 - Comments

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By Chris Williams: Terence Crawford took some shots at WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia this week on Twitter for some unknown reason. Garcia took the high road by not firing back on the 28-year-old Crawford (29-0, 20 KOs) Crawford the way he would have if he had wanted to. Crawford’s trash talking won’t lead to him getting a fight against Garcia.

They’re both with separate management, and it’s just not realistic that they’re face each other. Garcia is with Al Haymon and Crawford is with Bob Arum of Top Rank. Need I say more? This means that Crawford’s career will likely involve him fighting Jessie Vargas, Viktor Postol [again], Ruslan Provodnikov, and Jessie Vargas. I see Crawford fighting those guys, but definitely not Danny Garcia.

“How you run a weight class but pay someone step aside money not to fight you but you can through the weight class. How that go?” said Crawford on his Twitter. “Who better Gamboa or Rod Salka? Some pray on the weak to make they self feel strong.”

You can turn that around what Crawford is saying. Look at Crawford’s mismatches against Dierry Jean and Thomas Dulorme.

Danny Garcia vs. Andre Berto is in the works for Garcia’s next fight. They’re both managed by Al Haymon, so it’s an easy fight to get made. Further, Berto is ranked #2 with the World Boxing Council. That further helps. Garcia would look to fight his #1 WBC mandatory Amir Khan, but he’s coming off of hand surgery and a knockout loss to Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Khan is expected back in the ring in the first quarter of 2017 if everything goes right. You can expect Khan to take a tune-up fight at that time rather than looking to fight Danny Garcia straightaway.

As for Crawford getting a fight against Manny Pacquiao in 2017, I don’t see it happening. Pacquiao ignored Crawford for his November 5 fight by selecting Jessie Vargas, and I see him doing the same thing in the first half of 2017. I think Pacquiao is going to wait and see what happens with the Mayweather fight. That’s the match that will make Pacquiao the big money. If the rematch even brings in half of the 4.6 million pay-per-view buys of the fight at 2.3 million buys, Pacquiao can walk away with a cool $50 million to put in his pocket. That’s a lot of good clean cash. A fight between Pacquiao and Crawford would give the Filipino star chickenfeed in comparison. It would be like Pacquiao doing a rematch with Tim Bradley, but likely getting far below his usual $20 million. Pacquiao’s guaranteed money is said to be less than what he was getting in the past due to the reduced pay-per-view buys of his last fight against Bradley. If Pacquiao makes the mistake of fighting Crawford, then he could wind up with another fight that brings in very few buys.

Obviously, Pacquiao’s fight against Jessie Vargas isn’t going to bring in a lot of pay-per-view buys, but at least it’s a fight that will be taking place at 147 with Vargas’ WBO title on the line. If Pacquiao fought Crawford, he would need to melt down to 140 to accommodate him with his request to fight at his own weight. That’s crazy for Crawford to be telling a popular fighter like Pacquiao that he needs to come down in weight because he’s the one that is the PPV star, not Crawford. Let’s be real. Crawford is just popular with a certain segment of the hardcore boxing fans and with his fans in his own hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.

Crawford is in a tough situation. He wants the fights against the bigger names like Pacquiao and Danny Garcia, but he doesn’t have the clout to get either of those fights. In order for Crawford to get those type of fights, he needs some of the bigger names to fight him. That likely won’t happen because the most of the popular fighters are signed with other promotional companies.

With Crawford’s promoter Bob Arum liking to match his own fighters in his Top Rank stable against each other in repeated rematches, he hasn’t had to reach out to a lot of other promoters when it involves his better fighters in his stable. This means that Crawford is kind of out in the cold unless Pacquiao throws him a bone in 2017 by giving him a fight in order to please Arum. I can’t see that happening. Like I said, there’s a ton of money for Pacquiao to make in a rematch with Mayweather, so it doesn’t make sense for him to fight Crawford.

Since Crawford is kind of stuck just defending his WBC/WBO light welterweight titles for his next fight, he’s going to have to be satisfied with facing the likes of Jason Pagara, Jose Zepeda, or maybe John Molina. There’s also a possibility of Crawford defending his WBC strap against #2 WBC Rances Bathelemy. That would be a nice fight, as long as Crawford stands his ground and doesn’t run from the Cuban fighter. It would look bad if Crawford ran from him for 12 rounds like we saw much of the time in his fight against Postol.