Terence Crawford vs. Mauricio Herrera possible for 2/27 at MSG

By Boxing News - 12/30/2015 - Comments

crawford6By Chris Williams: WBO light welterweight champion Terence Crawford (27-0, 19 KOs) won’t be getting the big money fight that he was hoping for in early 2016 against Manny Pacquiao, but he does have a good chance of fighting 35-year-old #3 WBO Mauricio Herrera (22-5, 7 KOs) on February 27th at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Unbeaten #6 WBO, #8 IBF lightweight contender Felix Verdejo (19-0, 14 KOs) will be on the same card in a 10 round bout against an opponent still to be determined.

“Told by Bob Arum @budcrawford402 pointed to February @HBO boxing fight against Mauricio Herrera at The [Madison Square] Garden with Felix Verdejo on card,” Lance Pugmire said on his Twitter.

This a bit of a surprise that Herrera will be fighting the 28-year-old Crawford, because there was talk that Herrera would be fighting former WBO light welterweight champion Ruslan Provodnikov next, but it looks like Arum got to Herrera first for his guy Crawford to fight. Arum needs a decent level opponent for Crawford to fight in order to continue building his career. It doesn’t help Crawford if Arum keeps putting him in with no names like Dierry Jean, Thomas Dulorme and Raymundo Beltran.

There’s nothing wrong with those fighters, but they’re not exactly household names with the casual boxing fans in the U.S. Yes, the hardcore fans are very familiar with Dulorme, Jean and Beltran, but it’s the casual fans that drive the sport. Arum needs a name for Crawford to fight because he’ll never be a star with the guys that Arum is matching him up against.

Crawford needs to hurry his career along by moving up to welterweight if he wants to really pick up fans because the 140lb division where he’s at right now is a ghost town as far as top level stars. There’s really only Adrien Broner in the division and no one else. You can’t even count Crawford because he’s not a star and definitely not in Broner’s league in terms of popularity.

YouTube video

Herrera has been arguably robbed twice in the last two years in losses to Danny Garcia and Jose Benavidez. Herrera appeared to win both fights, and yet he was given losses. Benavidez is promoted by Top Rank like Crawford. Hopefully, we don’t see Herrera getting robbed by Crawford because that would be a pity.

Crawford has no inside game at all, and he would be forced to clinch constantly like he did in his ugly to watch win over Beltran. Herrera would probably need a knockout against Crawford in order to prevent winding up on the receiving end of a controversial decision.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAfGo0_v5no

Crawford hasn’t shown the kind of punching power yet to suggest that he’ll be able to move up to the welterweight division to compete against the stronger fighters in the division. Crawford also has a problem with a lack of guys that he could fight even if he did move up to 147. If all Arum is going to do is mostly match Crawford against his own Top Rank fighters, he’s not going to have a lot of options if Crawford moves up in weight.



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