Terence Crawford vacates IBF 140 lb. title

By Boxing News - 08/30/2017 - Comments

Image: Terence Crawford vacates IBF 140 lb. title

By Jeff Aranow: Less than 2 weeks after becoming the unified IBF/WBA/WBC/WBO light welterweight champion with a 3rd round knockout over IBF 140 lb. champion Julius Indongo on August 19, Terence “Bud” Crawford (32-0, 23 KOs) has vacated his International Boxing Federation title.

Crawford, 29, didn’t have much of a choice, as the IBF had ordered a purse bid for this Thursday, August 31, for Crawford’s mandatory defense against #1 IBF challenger Sergey Lipinets. Rather than participate in the purse bid and wind up having to defend against the little-known contender Lipinets, Crawford vacated his IBF title.

Crawford vacating the IBF title was predictable. What’s unclear is why Crawford is still bothering to hold onto his WBA, WBC and WBO 140 lb. titles. With Crawford announcing the news at his post-fight press conference on August 19 that he’ll be moving up to 147, it makes zero sense for him to hold onto the remaining light welterweight titles unless he’s not quite sure whether he wants to move up in weight to the welterweight division.

The only logical explanation for Crawford keeping his 3 remaining 140 lb. titles is perhaps he’s hoping that Mikey Garcia will move up to fight him for those titles. Mikey just finished beating Adrien “The Problem” Broner by a 12 round unanimous decision on July 29.

Maybe there’s an outside chance that Mikey Garcia could move up to 140 to fight Crawford. I seriously doubt it. If that’s why Crawford is holding onto his light welterweight titles, then he might as well give them up now, because Garcia is not going to move up to 140 to fight him in my view. I just don’t see that fight happening for many reasons.

Crawford’s promoter Bob arum of Top Rank said recently that Crawford would be attending the rematch between Manny Pacquiao and WBO welterweight champion Jeff Horn in Australia in November. However, Pacquiao is thinking about putting off the Horn rematch until 2018. Horn’s co-promoters at Duco Events remain optimistic that the fight will still take place in November.

Crawford wants to fight the winner of the Pacquiao-Horn fight. If Crawford doesn’t have the opportunity to fight either of those guys before the end of 2017, he might be better off staying at light welterweight.

“On behalf of Top Rank and Terence Crawford we would like to thank you and the IBF for allowing Terence to participate in the historic four-title unification bout on August 19. As always it was a pleasure working with the IBF,” in a copy of the letter ESPN.com received from Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti in sending to the IBF to let them know that Crawford is vacating his IBF 140 lb. strap. “It had been a lifelong dream of Terence’s to win an IBF world championship and to be recognized as undisputed, unified world champion.”

There was no money in Crawford defending the IBF title against Lipinets. Top Rank has an uphill battle trying to turn Crawford into a star. It’s not easy because they don’t have the name fighters in their Top Rank stable to match Crawford again. Manny Pacquiao about to turn 39 in December, and he seems mainly interested in fighting a rematch against Jeff Horn.

Although it would be nice if Pacquiao took one for the team by being a stepping stone for Crawford to become more popular at his expense, it’s not likely to happen. Whether Pacquiao defeats or loses to Horn in their rematch, he’s likely going to retire rather than fight Crawford and be his stepping stone to help him become a star for Top Rank. Horn isn’t a big enough name to turn Crawford into a star if he beats him. Casual boxing fans in the U.S don’t know who Jeff Horn is.

The hardcore boxing fan obviously know Horn for being the guy that roughed Pacquiao up last July in winning a controversial 12 round unanimous decision in his hometown in Brisbane, Australia. Given the controversy surrounding the results of the fight and all the fouling that Horn got away with without being penalized, Crawford won’t get much of a popularity boost when/if he beats the Australian. For Crawford to increase his popularity, he needs to fight non-Top Rank fighters like Shawn Porter, Adrien Broner, Keith Thurman, Errol Spence Jr. and Amir Khan. I don’t see any of those fights happening soon. Crawford might be able to get one or two of those fighters to face him one of these days when he becomes a bigger name and/or if Top Rank overpays them with a huge money offer to lure them to take the fight with the counter punching Crawford.

It’s a complicated situation for Crawford. Should he stay at 140 or move up to 147 and have no one to fight other than guys like Jessie Vargas and Jeff Horn. If he moves up in weight, he can win the WBO welterweights title off Horn, who is co-promoted by Top Rank, and he then can defend the WBO belt against the contenders in the WBO’s rankings. There’s not much there for Crawford to fight in the WBO’s top 15 if he can get his hands on the WBO welterweight title by beating Horn or Pacquiao. If Pacquiao isn’t going to fight Crawford, the only name guy he could fight out of the top 15 would be Lucas Matthysse, who hasn’t fought in ages. That’s not a great fight, and likely not one that will do much for Crawford’s popularity.

Here is the WBO’s top 15 at 147:

1. Manny Pacquiao

2. Lucas Matthysse

3. Bradley Skeete

4. Egidijus Kavaliauskas

5. Konstantin Ponomarev

6. Taras Shelestyuk

7. Giovanni Santillan

8. Adrian Luciano Veron

9. Jessie Vargas

10. Ray Robinson

11. Gary Corcoran

12. Stephen Danyo

13. Carlos Ocampo

14. Qudratillo Abduguharov

15. Custio Calyton

Even if Crawford does beat Horn to get the WBO welterweight title, he’s not going to have anyone to fight in the division unless Pacquiao sticks around long enough to be a stepping stone for him. Pacquiao looked so bad against Horn, that I don’t think it’ll register with the boxing public if Crawford does fight him and take his scalp. Top Rank needs to work with the other promoters that manage Porter, Broner, Thurman, Spence, Danny Garcia and Khan. Those are the guys that Crawford needs to beat if he wants to become a star. If he never fights any of them, then he’ll be in the same situation he was in when he was fighting at 140. In other words, Crawford will be popular in his home state of Nebraska, and with a small percentage of hardcore boxing fans that enjoy watching counter punchers and technical fighters like him compete.