By Chris Williams: Terence Crawford’s next opponent for his May 20th fight is down to 3 candidates, according his promoter Bob Arum. The names are as follows: Amir Imam, Adrian Granados and Felix Diaz. Arum mentioned Imam’s name first in listing the three candidates, which could be a hint that he’s going to select him for Crawford’s May 20 fight. What’s bad about the 26-year-old Imam is he was knocked out in 8 rounds by Granados. Imam has fought once since then in beating journeyman Wildredo Acuna by a 3rd round knockout last July.
Arum isn’t saying which of them he prefers for Crawford (30-0, 21 KOs) to face. Diaz appears to be the best of the three and the one with the most talent. However, Arum says that Diaz’s fights are boring. Of the three, Diaz would probably give Crawford the most trouble. I guess it’s just a coincidence that Arum seems cool on the idea of matching Crawford against him.
Granados just lost to Adrien Broner. That would be a strange choice for Arum to select Granados given that he just lost his last fight. Feeding Crawford fighters that are coming off defeats probably isn’t the best way to build him into a star. If Arum wants to turn Crawford into a star, then he needs to start putting him in with better opposition.
“Well I think that we have three guys in the running for it, there may be more but three guys my matchmakers have mentioned,” said Arum to Fighthub.com. “One is the African kid that’s number one in the [WBC] – I forget his name. Amir something or other [Amir Imam. We’re going to have to fight him eventually. The other is [Adrian] Granados who had a good fight. And the third is Felix Diaz. [Diaz] is a tough kid but he makes boring fights. [Against Sammy Vasquez] was the one fight he had that was a good fight. But usually he’s a stinker, fights from the outside. But Terence will fight anybody.”
Crawford really needs to move up to welterweight. If wants to become a bigger name, he’s got to move up to the 147 lb. division because he’s not fighting guys that are increasing his star power. Look at Crawford’s last 5 fights: John Molina Jr., Viktor Postol, Henry Lundy, Dierry Jean and Thomas Dulorme. Those are not big names that are talented enough to have increased Crawford’s star power. The only top names that Crawford has on his resume that did anything for him are Ricky Burns and Yuriorkis Gamboa.
Crawford’s fight against Viktor Postol last year didn’t attract a lot of interest because on pay-per-view rather than regular HBO, and it was against a guy that the casual boxing fans in the U.S aren’t familiar with. Crawford needs to move up to 147 before he uses up his youth fighting obscure guys at 147.
You can understand why Adrien Broner fights at 140. He’s not big enough to fight at welterweight. But in the case of Crawford, he’s more than big enough to fight in the welterweight division. You have to wonder why Crawford chooses to stay at 140. Is he concerned whether he can hang with the talented fighters at 147?
Crawford’s May 20th fight will take place at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.