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(Photo credit: Rey Sanchez) By Dan Ambrose: 50 Cent, the promoter for former IBF/WBA featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa (23-0, 16 KO’s), says that Top Rank Promotions was afraid of matching one of their most popular fighters Mikey Garcia up against Gamboa for fear that he’d lose the fight, and this in turn would hurt them. However, they don’t feel the same way about the less popular WBO lightweight champion Terence Crawford (23-0, 16 KO’s), who Gamboa will be facing this Saturday night at the CenturyLink Center, in Omaha, Nebraska, USA.

50 Cent says that Crawford isn’t seen by Top Rank in the same way as Mikey Garcia. In other words, it’s less of a blow to them if Crawford gets beaten by Gamboa than it does with Garcia, who Top Rank is trying to turn into a PPV attraction. Crawford, as good as he is, is far, far away from ever becoming a PPV type fighter.

“They didn’t make the Mikey Garcia [vs. Gamboa] fight, because Top Rank was afraid Mikey was going to lose that fight,” 50 Cent said to Sherdog.com via ESPN. “They’re not protecting Terence Crawford the way they protected Mikey Garcia because I don’t think it’s the same sort of asset. So Terence Crawford is in the lion’s den.”

Crawford is a naturally bigger fighter than Gamboa, and that’s obviously a reason why Top Rank was willing to make the fight. Gamboa started his career as a featherweight, which was his ideal weight division; whereas 5’8” Crawford has been a lightweight since he started his career in 2008. He has a 5 inch reach advantage to go along with a 2 ½ height advantage over the 5’5 ½” Gamboa.

Having Crawford with a huge size advantage over Gamboa is similar to what it would be if Crawford was asked to move up in weight on Saturday to take on a big welterweight like Keith Thurman. As good as Crawford is as a counter puncher, he’d likely be crushed by Thurman and totally dominated. But by matching Crawford against the much smaller Gamboa, it gives Thurman a decent chance of beating him. If both fighters were the same size, Crawford would likely have no chance because Gamboa is already stronger than him at 5’5”.