By Allan Fox: Bob Arum of Top Rank sees a lot of potential fights for his fighter Terence Crawford once the sport opens back up. Arum says Manny Pacquiao, Keith Thurman, Errol Spence Jr., and Kell Brook are all options for the WBO welterweight champion Crawford (36-0, 27 KOs).
If that’s indeed the case, then Crawford is going to do well in 2020. Arum suspects that the other promoters and their fighters will be anxious to take on the toughest fights they can when boxing resumes. They’ll want to make up for lost time, and they won’t want to take chances of missing out on a fight if pandemic continues with a second wave.
Crawford hasn’t been able to step into the footsteps of Floyd Mayweather Jr., even though Arum touts him as being the best welterweight in the division.
If Crawford is the best, he hasn’t proven it. You have to go on faith and assume that because he was able to beat Amir Khan and Egidijus Kavaliauskas, it means he can beat everyone at 147.
It would be ridiculous to assume that Crawford is the best fighter at 147 based on his thin resume.
Brook, Thurman & Porter possibilities for Crawford
“That’s a good fight, Crawford and Brook, but the problem bring Brook over here [to the U.S.] and bringing Crawford to the U.K., which is experiencing a big spike in cases,” said Arum to Fighthype. “There are a number of fighters that Crawford can fight once we’re up and running.
“PBC has a couple of guys like Thurman and Porter are good possibilities. A fight against Manny Pacquiao is not out of the question. The question is, where would you do it? Can you bring in a fighter from the Philippines to the United States? You can’t now, but maybe in a few months, you can. All of these situations are so novel that we’ve never faced them before.
“We don’t know if it was Manny or his so-called advisers,” said Arum about Pacquiao not wanting to fight Crawford. “That was true for a time, but recently we were told by advisers of his that he’s very much open to a Crawford fight,” said Arum.
Kell Brook has an excellent chance of fighting Crawford. But for some reason, Arum isn’t coming out and saying that he’s the next opponent for Terence. It could that Arum is playing coy on purpose so that Brook, 33, doesn’t ask for too much money. More likely, Arum views Brook as not popular enough to bring in pay-per-view buys.
Former WBA/WBC welterweight champion Keith Thurman (29-1, 22 KOs) gave an amusing interview this week in which he said he would sign a contract to fight Crawford if he sent it to him.
But later on in the same interview, Thurman admitted that Crawford is on the bottom of his list of opponents he wants to face. Thuman has Crawford at the #4 spot, and even then, it’s questionable whether he would bother to fight him.
Arum: Crawford unbeatable at 147
“I don’t think there’s a welterweight including [Errol] Spence that beats Crawford,” said Arum. “We’ll have to see, but Manny has accepted challenges in his career where people said he didn’t have a chance. In the [Oscar] De La Hoya fight, he was told not only that he didn’t have a chance, but he dominated De La Hoya.
“Manny Pacquiao is a different type of athlete. But again, Pacquiao sees things in himself that other people don’t see, so we’ll have to see. Then the question is, when do you do the fight? If you have problems bringing people from abroad plus cornermen and all the people he brings with him into the United States, then you can’t do it in the United States.
“We certainly can’t do it in the Philippines. Then the question is, is there a Middle East country that would put up money for the fight. Right now, all these Middle East countries are all on lockdown. It’s very hard to make a fight now,” said Arum.
Pacquiao is probably out of reach for Crawford. Arum is mentioning Pacquiao a lot, but it’s still not a fight that has much of a chance of happening. Pacquiao has got loads of opportunities with the Premier Boxing Champions welterweights, and he doesn’t need the switch-hitting Crawford.
Crawford is beatable now that he’s getting older, and starting to fight better opposition. Since signing Crawford many years ago, they’ve been very slow in putting him in with better opposition. As such, Crawford is still mainly known by hardcore boxing fans rather than the casual ones.
Spence will want interim fightÂ
“Thurman just made a statement about how he’s looking forward to a Crawford fight,” said Arum. “I think a lot of the things that were said before aren’t applicable now. I know Spence wants to fight Crawford, as he says, but he probably wants an interim fight because he’s been inactive for so long, and he’s had this terrible injury.
“Coming off the second Fury-Wilder fight where PBC and Top Rank worked so well together that a lot of the fights that were impossible before will be very marketable now,” said Arum.
Spence probably will take at least one tune-up when boxing resumes, but maybe not. He says he wants to face Danny Garcia as soon as the sport restarts, and that’s a quality opponent. Arum will need to wait until 2021 or 2022 before Spence is ready to take on Crawford in a unification fight.
Spence wants Garcia, Pacquiao, Thurman, and possibly a rematch with Shawn Porter. In between those fights, Spence will need to make title mandatory title defenses for his IBF and WBC welterweight belts.
Even if Spence wanted to fight Crawford, he’s not going to have time to do it for a little while so. If Top Rank continues to match Crawford the way they’ve been doing, he should be fine waiting 2 to 3 years before Spence fights him. Brook is supposed to be an upgrade for Crawford from the fighters he’s been facing. If Brook is as good as it gets in terms of the match-making being done for Crawford, then he has no worries.