Manny Pacquiao vs. Terence Crawford deal dead, funding from Abu Dhabi never came through

By Boxing News - 04/24/2021 - Comments

By Chris Williams: The fight negotiations between Manny Pacquiao and Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford have imploded after the Ab Dhabi investors failed to come up with the money for the fight.

Pacquiao had signed his portion of the contract, but Crawford didn’t sign his part.

But with the money never materializing from the Abu Dhabi investors, it makes it immaterial that Crawford didn’t sign. There was never any reason for him to sign. Oh well, it’s no to the next one for Crawford.

Mike Coppinger reports the news of the Pacquiao – Crawford deal is now effectively dead, which leaves both fighters without a match and having wasted months. The fight was supposed to have taken place in the UAE.

The 33-year-old WBO welterweight champion Crawford (37-0, 28 KOs) will have to go with his Plan-B, which was supposedly Shawn Porter.

Image: Manny Pacquiao vs. Terence Crawford deal dead, funding from Abu Dhabi never came through

Crawford may not get that fight if his promoters at Top Rank don’t offer the former IBF welterweight champion Porter (31-3-1, 17 KOs) more than a million. Porter, 33, is likely to want the same money that Kell Brook got or more to face Crawford last November.

If Crawford doesn’t fancy the fight with Porter, he can always accept the challenge from the young gun #2 Vergil Ortiz Jr (17-0, 17 KOs), who called him out last month after stopping his stablemate former WBO light welterweight champion Maurice ‘Mighty Mo’ Hooker in the seventh round on March 20th.

After the fight, Crawford rejected the notion of a fight with Ortiz, but perhaps at the time, he naively assumed that he had the Pacquiao fight in the bag.

Chris Williams had serious doubts from the start and saw Crawford setting himself up for a big disappointment thinking he would finally get the Pacquiao fight.

Now, it’s all become clear that Crawford won’t be getting the fight with the Filipino superstar, so he’s going to have to make a tough decision on whether to take on the dangerous Ortiz Jr, Shawn Porter, or one of Top Rank’s little known welterweights.

Unfortunately, it’s too late for Egidijus Kavaliauskas to be trotted out for another fight with Crawford because he’s no longer with Top Rank.

Crawford needs to bite the bullet and take the fight with Vergil Ortiz or Porter and make sure that Bob Arum puts a rematch clause in the contract so that he can get a second right if things don’t work out.

It looks like MP Promotions president Sean Gibbons was right when he said there was no fight between Pacquiao and Crawford. He said that months ago, and it looks like he was right.

If this fight with the former eight-division world champion Pacquiao (62-7-2, 39 KOs) had taken place, Crawford would have gotten his first huge mega-fight in his 13-year pro career. Now it looks like he’s going to have to settle for a risky match against Porter.

Crawford will have a lot of trouble trying to deal with Porter’s smothering fighting style, and we could see him doing a lot of clinching and running as we’ve seen in some of his dullest fights.

For the fans that remember Crawford’s fight with Ricky Burns in 2014, he was tying up the Scottish fighter all night long to prevent him from fighting on the inside.

It was such a boring fight to watch. Luckily for Crawford, he wasn’t disqualified for excessive clinching because he easily could have if he had a referee that was on his JOB.

Image: Manny Pacquiao vs. Terence Crawford deal dead, funding from Abu Dhabi never came through

Sources: The proposed Manny Pacquiao-Terence Crawford welterweight title fight, pegged for June 5, appears all but dead after the funding from Abu Dhabi investors never came through. Crawford, at long last, would have finally landed an elite opponent. Now the wait continues,” said @MikeCoppinger.

“Sources: If deal completed, the fight would have headlined ESPN+ PPV. Pacquiao signed his contract, but Crawford never did. Now it looks like it doesn’t matter that Crawford didn’t sign.”