Terence Crawford with only one option: Shawn Porter

By Boxing News - 03/03/2021 - Comments

By Chris Williams: Terence Crawford got some bad news yesterday with Mikey Garcia revealing that he’s going to be fighting Manny Pacquiao next in May, which leaves Terence with only one option, Shawn Porter, for his next fight.

Here’s the predicament Crawford is in right now as far his next opponent goes. If he doesn’t take the fight with Porter, he’s likely going to be stuck defending his WBO title against one of these guys:

  • Custio Clayton
  • Michael McKinson
  • Jaron Ennis
  • David Avanesyan
  • Sergey Lipinets
  • Yuki Beppu
  • Kudratillo Abdukakhorov
  • Chris Kongo
  • Lewis Crocker
  • Sandy Messaoud

The problem with Crawford fighting those guys is that none of them are household names, and they’ll bring poor ratings on ESPN. In the case of Avanesyan, Lipinets, and Ennis, they might even beat Crawford. Top Rank certainly doesn’t want that to happen, do they?

All those invested in Crawford and gone in a wink of an eye with him getting dethroned by an obscure contender without it being a big-money fight.

Porter won’t come cheap

To get Porter to agree to take on Crawford, Top Rank is going to need to make it worthwhile. If you want the best, you got to pay, and Porter will want to taste some of that green.

Former IBF welterweight champion Porter, who is a star in his own right, has already made it clear that he won’t accept a lowball $1 million offer for him to take on Crawford on pay-per-view.

Image: Terence Crawford with only one option: Shawn Porter

That offer is likely going to need to move towards the $4 million range to get Porter to come on board. Throwing trifle at Shawn, thinking he’s going to dive after the dough isn’t going to work. Top Rank will likely have to give Porter similar money to what he got for his clash against Errol Spence Jr in 2019.

Crawford, 33, is now left with Porter (31-3-1, 17 KOs) as his primary opponent, and that’s not good for him. Porter is the kryptonite for Crawford, and this could spell the end of the Nebraska native’s three-year reign as the WBO 147-lb champion.

Of course, if Crawford is willing to agree to the 60-40 split that IBF/WBC welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr would be offering to him, they can make that fight happen.

Crawford isn’t going to do that, so we can probably forget about ever seeing those two battle it out. 40% would likely be Crawford’s biggest payday, and it doesn’t make sense for him to stubbornly turn down that fight.

Is this the end of the line for Terence?

If Crawford loses this fight, all the hopes of his promoter Bob Arum about him being a superstar will have gone down the drain.

We all heard it before from Arum, how Crawford fought like Sugar Ray Leonard, and he supposedly is a better fighter than Errol Spence Jr.

Image: Terence Crawford with only one option: Shawn Porter

Bob Arum was hoping that he could the Filipino star Pacquiao (62-7-2, 39 KOs) to agree to fight Crawford (37-0, 28 KOs) for his WBO welterweight strap, and he’d even talked about someone coming up with a big site fee offer for the fight.

Chris Williams doubted it from the start, and it was obvious that Crawford wasn’t going to get the mega-match against the 42-year-old Manny.

Now that Pacquiao is out of the picture, it’s got to be Porter for Crawford because there’s no one else available unless he wants to wait.

Crawford has got to take the fight with Porter, for better or for worse, and show the boxing nerds that put together the pound-for-pound lists that he deserves to be highly ranked.

Vergil Ortiz Jr targeting Crawford

“That’s a fight we’re going after right now,” said trainer Robert Garcia to Little Giant Boxing about #2 WBO Vergil Ortiz Jr. shooting for Crawford fight. “We’re #2 in the [WBO] rankings.

“Golden Boy and Top Rank, they have been working together, they’ve been doing championship fights together. So I think it’s the easiest fight to make.

“The other ones are with PBC and Golden Boy, who have a history of not working together.

“I think this is the easiest fight to make, and we are going after, if everything goes well with the Hooker fight, we are going after Crawford. I think Vergil is ready. People might think he’s too young,” said Robert.