By Chris Williams: With Top Rank promoter Bob Arum talking about wanting to match super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko against Manny Pacquiao in 2017, another great fight that Arum needs to think about is putting Lomachenko in with WBC/WBO light welterweight champion Terence Crawford in the near future. There is only two divisions that separates Crawford and Lomachenko rather than three for Pacquiao-Lomachenko.
Since Arum really enjoys to mix and match his Top Rank stable fighters in club-like matches within his own promotional company, a fight between Crawford and Lomachenko would seem like a real no-brainer for the future. Once Arum matches Pacquiao against Lomachenko next year, depending on the outcome, he could then put Lomachenko in with Crawford or Tim Bradley.
It would be a great way of making Lomachenko more popular. I’m not sure if it’s a win-win for Crawford though. He would obviously take a tremendous amount of criticism if he got clowned by Lomachenko like Nicholas Walters did last Saturday night in quitting after the 7th round in their fight on HBO Boxing from the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Roy Jones Jr. of HBO doesn’t see a fight between Lomachenko and Crawford as a realistic option due to the size difference between them. Jones Jr. thinks a much more doable fight is Pacquiao vs. Lomachenko, because Pacquiao started his boxing career out in the 112lb division in 1995. Crawford started his career as a 135lb fighter at lightweight in 2008. Lomachenko says he stepped foot inside the ring last Saturday weighing 136lbs for the Walters fight.
“I can see him fighting Pacquiao for sure,” said Jones about Lomachenko potentially facing Pacquiao. “The reason why I can see him fighting Pacquiao is because Pacquiao has already went up as high as he’s going to go. Now he’s going to decline as far as coming down in weight. He speaks about coming back down to 140 all the time now. Knowing that Pacquiao came from 112, it would probably be easier to come back down to meet at 135, then anybody else. Terence Crawford is on his way up the latter. He’s not descending. He’s ascending. He’s going up to 140 or 147. So I don’t see that fight happening. Terence Crawford is a much bigger fence-man. As far as frame goes, he could have never turned pro at 112. So I think a Pacquiao fight is much more doable, and one I would love to see,” said Jones.
The only way it would be fair for Lomachenko and Crawford to fight is if the fight took place at 135, and if there was a rehydration clause in the contract to keep Crawford from rehydrating over a certain amount of weight. Crawford reportedly rehydrated to 156lbs for his recent fight against Viktor Postol last July. If you do the math, you’ll see that Crawford currently outweighs Lomachenko by 20 pounds on the night of his fights.
Crawford, 5’8”, is two inches taller than the 5’6” Lomachenko, and has a five inch reach advantage. That doesn’t mean that Crawford would win though based off those measurements, because Nicholas Walters had a huge eight inch reach advantage over Lomachenko, and it didn’t help him at all. Lomachenko used his in and out attacking style to totally dominate Walters. If Crawford could be kept from going over 145lbs after rehydrating for a fight against Lomachenko, I think it would be a fair fight. Lomachenko would rehydrate to 135lbs, while Crawford would come in at 145. That’s only 10 pounds of weight that would separate them.
You can argue that Lomachenko is a much more talented fighter than Crawford if the two fighters were at the same weight. Lomachenko would have the potential to dominate Crawford in the same way that he did Walters. That doesn’t mean Crawford would quit on his stool the way that Walters did, but I think he’d wind up getting dominated badly by Lomachenko.
Crawford is expected to move up to 147 soon. It’s got to be really tough on him to get down to 140 to defend his titles. I don’t know why Crawford is staying at 140. Having to draw 16 pounds of water weight to get to the light welterweight limit has got to be hard on Crawford’s body. He’ be much better off if he moved to 147, because he would only need to drop nine or ten pounds of water weight. However, Crawford might not be able to dominate at welterweight the same way he’s dominating the 140lb division. The guys are heavier, more powerful, and taller than the fighters that Crawford has been fighting at 140.
The 5’11” Postol was a rare exception in fighting at light welterweight. Most of the guys in that weight class aren’t that tall. Crawford would need to deal with some big punchers at welterweight unless Arum chooses to only match him against his own Top Rank fighters for the remainder of his career. If Arum does that, then Crawford wouldn’t need to worry about fighting guys like Spence, Kell Brook, Amir Khan, Danny Garcia, Shawn Porter or Keith Thurman. Crawford could fight the likes Pacquiao and Jessie Vargas. Tim Bradley is Crawford’s friend, so they probably won’t ever fight each other.