By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum has two guys – Felix Diaz and Adrian Granados – that he’s considering for his fighter WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Terence Crawford’s May 20th title defense at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. Arum was hoping to get #2 WBC contender Amir Imam for Crawford’s next fight, but he’s had problems getting in touch with his promoter Don King.
With that fight off the table for Crawford, Arum is looking at the recently beaten Granados and Diaz as the last two possibile options. Granados would have been a good option before his loss to Adrien Broner last February, but that defeat kind of takes the excitement out of him as a good choice.
Of course, that might not stop Arum from still signing Granados for the Crawford fight. If the idea is to make an exciting fight that the casual boxing fans will be interested in seeing, then Granados would be a good choice. It’s just that the casual fans are probably not familiar with Granados. The fans that know him would realize that he lost his last fight, which makes him a terrible choice. Arum has put Crawford in with struggling fighters recently with him being matched against Molina, who came into the fight with 3 losses in his last 5 fights. Hank Lundy came into his fight with Crawford having lost 2 out of his last 3 fights. Dierry Jean fought Crawford in 2015 after being soundly beaten by Lamont Peterson in 2014.
“I think we pretty well came to terms with Crawford and we’re looking to close an opponent but it will be a good opponent,” Arum said to ringtv.com. “It’s really now between two of them, Granados and Felix Diaz.”
Arum has more positive things to say about Granados than he did about Felix Diaz, who he said he’s sometimes involved in boring fights. If Arum wanted excitement, then he should talk with Crawford to let him know that he needs to stop moving around the ring as much, because his last two fights against Molina and Postol have been very boring times.
It was surprising that Crawford wasn’t booed out of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada for his fight against Postol, because that was an incredibly dull fight for me to watch, especially when Crawford started running around the ring, sticking his tongue out at Postol in round 12. Felix Diaz is an exciting fighter in my view. I don’t see him being boring, and I’ve never seen Diaz run around the ring sticking his tongue out at an opponent. Diaz likes to mix it up with his opponents.
Arum needs to pick someone good because Crawford’s May 20th fight will be televised on HBO Championship Boxing. Crawford’s last two fights against John Molina Jr. and Viktor Postol were arguably very boring fights to watch with a lot of movement from Crawford. For his next fight, Crawford needs to face someone that will be able chase him down if he chooses to run around the ring like he did against Molina and Postol.
Arum mentioned this week that Crawford is a possible option for Manny Pacquiao to fight in the fall. I doubt that Crawford is going to get that fight. Arum needs to match Crawford against some of his other Top Rank stable fighters in Tim Bradley or Jessie Vargas. Those are logical choices for Arum to make. It’s unclear why he’s pushing to have Pacquiao fight Crawford instead of Bradley and Vargas. Arum can also put Crawford in with Jeff Horn, who he’s been trying to match against Pacquiao lately. If Horn beats Crawford, Arum would have a new star from Australian in his stable. Yeah, Crawford’s star would be dimmed, but he’d have Horn as his new mini-star.