By Chris Williams: Terence Crawford and his promoter Bob Arum seem to have given up on the idea of making a fight against Errol Spence Jr. What is holding back the fight between WBO welterweight champion Crawford (37-0, 28 KOs) and IBF/WBC champ Spence (27-0, 21 KOs) from taking place are Terence wants a 50-50 split, which is never going to happen.
Why would Spence give parity to Crawford when he doesn’t bring as much to the table as him?
Crawford and Arum will have to down to earth and agree to the 60-40 split that Spence has offered in the past. I hate to say it, but that 60-40 may disappear soon if Crawford gets beaten or continues to look less than impressive in his fights.
Don’t be surprised if Spence changes his offers to 70-30 for Crawford. Once that happens, Crawford will be kicking himself for not agreeing to the 60-40 offer when he still had the chance.
Crawford believes that he’s on equal footing with the unbeaten pay-per-view star Spence Jr despite him not being a PPV attraction and holding only one belt instead of two. Additionally, the title that Crawford holds, the World Boxing Organization strap, is considered the less prestigious one in the eyes of many fans.
What further complicates the Spence-Crawford fight is the belief that Terence and Top Rank promoter Arum have of a fight against Manny Pacquiao transpiring it.
This week, Arum was talking up the idea of an outside investor coming up with a big offer to stage a fight between the former eight-division world champion Pacquiao (62-7-2, 39 KOs) in a foreign country. Chris Williams has heard this kind of talk before, and it’s not likely to happen.
If there were any chance of a fight between Pacquiao and the non-PPV fighter Crawford to happen in a foreign country, that match would have happened ages ago.
Why would anyone want to put in a large offer for a fight that won’t sell? If anything, a foreign investor would be coming up with a huge site fee to stage a match between Spence and Pacquiao overseas. That’s the fight the fans want to see, and it will sell.
Recently, Crawford made a dramatic statement when he said he would never ask for a fight against Spence again. We know that Crawford isn’t going to keep that promise because Spence is really his only chance for a mega-fight before he’s over-the-hill, which won’t be too long from now.
A year from now, Crawford will be turning 35, and that’s pretty old for a fighter that wins his fights with hand speed and reflexes. Like Spence, the fighters that win with size and power last a long time in the sport because it doesn’t matter if they lose speed.
Crawford needs to make up his mind and take the 60-40 split from Spence sooner rather than later. If things turn bleak for Crawford’s career, it’ll be a bad look if he has to grovel for a split that is no longer there for him from Spence.