By Chris Williams: Terence Crawford is now saying he doesn’t need a fight against the highly popular two-belt welterweight champion Errol ‘The Truth’ Spence Jr for his legacy and that Spence is the one that needs him.
Crawford (37-0, 28 KOs) has things twisted in his head, not realizing that IBF/WBC welterweight champion Spence (26-0, 21 KOs) is the pay-per-view attraction. Terence’s two attempts at fighting on PPV against Viktor Postol and Amir Khan bombed badly.
Chris Williams is trying to figure out what this “legacy” Crawford is talking about. As far as I can tell, Crawford has come close to fighting nobody resembling a talented opponent during his career.
These are the best names on Crawford’s resume:
- Yuriorkis Gamboa
- Viktor Postol
- Amir Khan
- Egidijus Kavaliauskas
- Jeff Horn
- Ricky Burns
Spence brought in a respectable 300K for both his fights against Shawn Porter and Mikey Garcia. Errol is now fighting Danny Garcia next on Fox Sports pay-per-view on December 5th, and that contest is likely to bring in 300,000 buys again if not more.
Crawford says he doesn’t need Spence
“It’s not that important,” said Crawford when asked how important is a fight between him and Errol Spence. “I don’t need Errol Spence for my legacy. I don’t know why people keep making it seem like I need Errol Spence. He needs me, I don’t need him,” said Crawford.
You can see what Crawford’s promoter Bob Arum is up against. He sounds stubborn, and one gets the sense that Crawford is trying to talk his way out of not having to fight Spence.
That’s what it looks like to Chris Williams. Spence is too dangerous, and now we’re seeing what appears to be Crawford creating the building blocks for justifying why he won’t fight him. It’s all so simple and so, so sad.
I hope we don’t see any passive-aggressive behavior for Spence in his last remaining fights with Top Rank. Would Crawford elect not to promote his remaining fights to spite Arum? He knows that Arum wants him to put in some effort to promote his matches.
Would Crawford intentionally choose not to promote his fights while on his way out the door with Top Rank? Gosh, I hope not.
Ideally, you want to finish on a strong note with your boss in any line of work. But some workers drag their feet on their way out.. Hopefully, Crawford doesn’t take that approach.
As for Arum, who is at the end of his rope out of frustration with his inability to sell Crawford’s fights, Terence is daring him to release him now BEFORE he fights Spence.
Terence dares Arum to release him
‘“If he feels that way, he can release me now,” said Crawford. “He can just release me. If you feel that I’m not an asset to your company, release me right now.
“You don’t have to wait until after the [Errol] Spence fight. Why do you have to wait until after the Spence fight? Release me now, and you don’t have to lose money no more. If I’m such a loss and a headache,” said Crawford.
Arum says he’s hoping to break even or make a little change for the Spence-Crawford fight. You can’t begrudge Arum from making some coin in Crawford’s last couple of fights, can you?
If what Arum says is true about him losing enough money on Crawford’s last two fights to build houses in Beverly Hills, it’s sad. You can sympathize with Arum in why he wants to make some of the money back on a Spence vs. Crawford fight.
Interestingly, Arum wasn’t even mentioning trying to put together a fight between Crawford and Manny Pacquiao. I think Arum knows that it’s a hundred-to-one shot that he convinces the 41-year-old Pacquiao to fight Crawford.
“If he feels that way, he can release me now.” @terencecrawford responds to Bob Arum’s comments following his latest fight. 🗣 pic.twitter.com/bTK48yw183
— DAZN Boxing (@DAZNBoxing) November 19, 2020