By Chris Williams: Terence Crawford says he would like to face Danny Garcia in a unification fight if he beats Shawn Porter next month in their clash for the vacant WBC welterweight title. WBO 147 pound champion Crawford (33-0, 24 KOs) says he’s not sure that Garcia, 29, will even win his fight against Porter (28-2-1, 17 KOs) because it’s a tough one for him.
Crawford, 30, doesn’t like the way that Garcia has been saying that the other top fighters need to face each other before he’ll fight them. Crawford thinks Garcia should face him without all the needless fights before that.
For Crawford to have a chance at fighting guys like Garcia, Shawn Porter, Keith Thurman, Amir Khan and Errol Spence, his promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank is going to need to be able to do business with their manager Al Haymon. Crawford is on the other side of the street with him being with Top Rank. Under the current political climate in boxing, it could be many years before Crawford gets a shot at Haymon’s fighters. Arum has his Top Rank fighters competing on ESPN and ESPN+, and that makes things kind of tough to setup a fight between Crawford and any of Haymon’s fighters due to them fighting on different networks. For him to have a realistic chance of getting the fights that he wants, Crawford may need to come over to the other side of the street to Showtime before he can face the likes of Garcia, Khan, Spence or Porter. Crawford being promoted by Top Rank could make it tougher for him to get the fights he wants against the likes of Danny Garcia and the other Haymon managed fighters.
”Danny Swift keep saying everybody need to fight each other like mf you fight me,” Crawford said on his social media site. ”I would say after your fight [against Porter], but then again I don’t even know if u going to win this fight. You real life must of bump your head and lost your mind like you don’t know who I really am.”
You can understand why Garcia (34-1, 20 KOs) wants Crawford to face the other top fighters before he gets to him, because it makes a fight between them much bigger. If Crawford can fight his way to a match against Garcia, it makes for a much bigger match-up when/if the time comes.
”Danny Swift, look you didn’t do what I did at 140,” Crawford said. ”I was undisputed [light welterweight champion], something you never [did]. I fought the guy [Viktor Postol] you were scared to fight. I came up to welterweight in my first fight [and] fought a champion [Jeff Horn]. I didn’t need no tune up fight or get handed a belt.”
Crawford is right about Garcia not having accomplished the same thing that he did in unifying the 140 pound weight class. However, you have to admit that Garcia likely would have beaten all the same fighters Crawford defeated to become the unified 140 pound champion. Crawford didn’t beat anyone special other than Postol, who Garcia likely would have beaten had they fought.
Crawford won his four titles at 140 beating these fighters:
Thomas Dulorme – WBO belt
Viktor Postol – WBC title
Julius Indongo – IBF & WBA titles
Crawford didn’t beat anyone extraordinary at light welterweight to win his four titles. For Crawford to argue that he accomplished something that Garcia didn’t is kind of shallow. If Crawford were fighting at 140 right now, it would be a much bigger deal if he defeated the likes of Regis Prograis, Josh Taylor, Jose Ramirez, Kiryl Relikh and Maurice Hooker. That’s not to say that Crawford couldn’t beat all four of those fighters, because he might be able to do it. But there’s no question that Crawford would have a lot more problem defeating Prograis, Relikh, Taylor, Ramirez and Hooker than he did in defeating Indongo, Dulorme and Postol. Prograis might even beat Crawford. That would be a really hard fight for Crawford if he were to have stuck around the 140 pound division long enough for him to fight the 29-year-old Prograis. It’s unclear if Crawford’s promoter Bob Arum would bother to have made a fight between him and the Lou DiBella promoted Prograis, but if so, it wouldn’t be a sure thing win for him like it was in his title fights against Indongo, Postol and Dulorme.
”I can go on and on about your resume as well talking about who I beat,” Crawford said in talking about Garcia. ”The only person I give you credit [for beating] is Amir King Khan, and that’s it. All the others you get no points for none of them.”
Crawford seems to have forgotten about Garcia’s 12 round unanimous decision win over Lucas Matthysse in 2013. That win came during the prime of Matthysse’s career, not when he was totally shot in his recent fight against Manny Pacquiao. Garcia beating Matthysse was an impressive fete. But as far as the remainder of Garcia’s career, he’s beaten no one special. Up to date, Garcia’s best victories of his 11-year pro career have come against these fighters:
Erik Morales
Zab Judah
Lucas Matthysse
Brandon Rios
Lamont Peterson
Robert ‘The Ghost’ Guerrero
Mauricio Herrera
Paulie Malignaggi
Amir Khan
Kendall Holt
Nate Campbell
Those are not great fighters unfortunately. Most of them were shot by the time that Garcia fought them. Hold, Campbell, Malignaggi, Judah, Rios and Guerrero were all just a shell of the fighters that they once were by the time Garcia fought them.
Crawford’s resume isn’t much better than Garcia’s in terms of talented opposition. Crawford recently moved up to 147 and defeated World Boxing Organization welterweight title Jeff Horn by a 9th round knockout on June 9th. Horn was little more than a belt holder at best. It was a doable fight for Crawford due to the two of them both being with Top Rank. Crawford’s first defense is expected to be against Top Rank stable-mate Jose Benavidez in December. Unfortunately for Crawford, there’s little interest from the boxing public to see him defend against Benavidez. It’s likely that Arum will have the Crawford vs. Benavidez fight on the ESPN+ app rather than regular ESPN. Having Crawford’s fights on ESPN+ at this stage in his career is putting the cart before the horse. Crawford arguably still hasn’t become popular enough for his fights to be on a monthly subscription service like ESPN+. Having his fights on a streaming service that boxing fans have to pay to see makes it tough for a lot of viewers to see him fight. It’s doubtful that fans are going to want to pay $5 just to see Crawford destroy a no name like Benavidez. It’s not a big enough fight, and the fans are already losing sight of him due to his fights being shown on ESPN+. It’s way too early for Crawford to be on a monthly pay service in my view. Unfortunately, it looks like Crawford’s future fights will be shown on that app.
Crawford still hasn’t fought anyone that he wasn’t a favorite to beat. His toughest match of his career was against former featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa in 2014, and he was losing that fight going into the fifth round. It would be nice to see Crawford fight the likes of Spence, Thurman, Prograis, Porter or Garcia one of these days. I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen though, as it’s likely that Crawford will stay with Top Rank for the remainder of his prime years. That might be a good thing though, because at least that way he won’t have a chance of getting exposed by Spence, Thurman and Prograis because those fights probably won’t ever get made.