By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn is mildly interested in matching WBA lightweight champion Anthony Crolla up against WBO lightweight champion Terry Flanagan in a unification fight in Crolla’s next match-up.
However, Hearn is talking about wanting to look out for Crolla to help him become a big name, and he’s not sure if he’ll make the fight with Flanagan. Hearn is thinking of other options or Crolla like a fight against possibly the winner of the June 11 fight between #1 WBC Dejan Zlaticanin and Emiliano Marsili, a unification fight against Rances Barthlemy, a voluntary defense, or the fight against Flanagan.
The voluntary defense is the only easy option of those choices because Zlatinican will likely beat Marsili, and he’s totally dangerous. Barthlemy is also a very difficult fighter that I think would beat Crolla, as would Zlaticanin.
Crolla, 29, scored a 7th round knockout win over #1 WBA challenger Ismael Barroso (19-1-2, 18 KOs) last Saturday night at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, UK. Hearn was crowing about the victory something fierce, saying it was one of the best he’d ever seen before. The reality of the situation was a bit different though.
Crolla basically won the fight due to him soaking up head shots from Barroso until the Venezuelan KO artist punched himself out in the 6th. Crolla than stopped him with a simple right hand body punch.
It wasn’t much of a punch from Crolla, but by that point in the fight, Barroso could have been knocked out by a feather. The 33-year-old Barroso’s legs looked robbery, as if he had worn himself out completely from throwing so many punches and he was a knockout waiting to happen. If you look at Barroso’s ring record, it’s pretty obvious why he was stopped. Most of his wins came by knockout within three rounds. As such, Barroso never fully developed his stamina to fight hard for 12 rounds like normal fighters do. He was more of a three-round fighter at best.
“We paid Crolla basically what was offered for the Flanagan fight. That’s a fight that fills this place,” said Hearn to IFL TV. “It’s a fight that deserves a big platform. Flanagan knows where he wants to be, of course. Flanagan wants to be here on Sky with us in the Manchester Arena. When you talk 50-50, you’ve got one guy that’s earning four times as much as the other guy at the moment. There’s talk of fighting Flanagan, and that is one of our options,” said Hearn.
I’m not holding my breath waiting for the Crolla vs. Flanagan fight take place. I can’t see it happening because Flanagan is too good for Crolla in my view. I suspect that Hearn agrees with me. Fighting Flanagan would be a step too far for Crolla.
They obviously felt that Barroso would ultimately gas out after punching himself out, but the fact that Hearn isn’t chomping at the bit to put Crolla in with Flanagan clearly tells you that there’s some doubt in his mind whether Crolla can get the job done. If Hearn puts Crolla in with Flanagan, he could be kissing goodbye one of his world champions and a big part of his revenue stream.