By Chris Williams: It’s been a month since Terence Crawford struggled to defeat little known contender Egidijus Kavaliauskas on December 14th in New York, and his promoters at Top Rank have haven’t revealed any solid options for his next fight.
The fact of the matter is, Top Rank boss Bob Arum has almost no real real choices for the soon to be 33-year-old Crawford’s next fight. Arum would like to match Crawford against the PBC welterweights Errol Spence Jr., Shawn Porter, Manny Pacquiao or Danny Garcia, but that’s not going to happen. Spence and Porter are the only ones interested in fighting Crawford. Spence is coming back from a car crash, and that pretty much rules him out as a potential option for Crawford to fight in 2020.
Kell Brook would be great option for Crawford
The good news for Crawford is Kell Brook is fighting this Saturday night, and he’s expressed interest in facing him. If Crawford wants Brook, he’s got that option available to. Whether a fight between Crawford and Brook would interest the U.S boxing public is hard to predict.
Brook was at one time a relevant welterweight 4 years ago before Gennadiy Golovkin shattered his eye socket during their fight in September 2016. Since that fight, Brook’s career has been on a downward spiral. Still, Brook is a big step up for Crawford compared to the guys he’s been facing during the last three years.
Crawford NOT interested in Porter fight
Surprisingly, Crawford isn’t interested in fighting Porter for some reason. Is Porter smothering style too difficult for Crawford? Perhaps. Crawford is one of those fighters that needs space to throw his shots, and he wouldn’t do well with Porter’s mugging style of fighting.
Crawford just blew through the last 2 years of his career fighting these non-stars:
- Egidijus Kavaliauskas
- Amir Khan
- Jose Benavidez Jr
- Jeff Horn
Bob Arum wants Conor McGregor for Crawford
Arum made a mention of wanting to match Crawford in 2 fights against UFC star Conor McGregor, but that wasn’t taken seriously. McGregor, who obviously heard Arum’s offer, never responded, which is a bad sign.
If the 31-year-old McGregor liked the idea of fighting Crawford, he would have said something by now. A fight between those two will likely NEVER happen. That’s not to say that Arum can’t fish out another one of the UFC fighters from the organization to fight Crawford. It’s basically a pipe dream on Arum’s part to be talking about a fight between Crawford and McGregor. It has no realstic chance of happening in this lifetime.
It just won’t be McGregor or Khabib Nurmagomedov. Those two are arguably the biggest stars the UFC has to offer, but there are other guys that Arum can get for Crawford if he’s insistent on setting up an ugly mismatch under the rules of boxing.
Lipinets or Zewski likely Crawford’s next opponent
Arum recently signed light welterweight Josh Taylor to his Top Rank stable. But he has plans for matching Taylor against Jose Ramirez in a unification fight at 140 in 2020. Taylor likely won’t be an option for Crawford until 2021, provided that he beats Ramirez this year. Regis Prograis and Ramirez are options in the future for Crawford, but not this year.
Possible options for Crawford’s next fight:
- Sergey Lipinets
- Mikael Zewski
Lipinets is a good fighter, but he’s pretty much in the same category as Crawford’s last opponent Egidijus Kavaliauskas in terms of being well known. He wouldn’t be given a chance by the odds-makers and the fans, and it would be next to impossible for Arum to get boxing fans excited at that fight. It would be a continuation of the type of opponents Crawford has been fighting through his career.
At this point with Crawford approaching his mid-30s, and still not a star, Arum needs to do something out of the ordinary for the Nebraska native. I don’t think putting Crawford in a WWE match will work, because he’s too small, but it could be worth a try. It worked for Tyson Fury, didn’t it?