By Chris William: Bob Arum says he’s hoping to get the fight announced next week between WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford and his mandatory Shawn Porter for November 20th at the Mandalay Bay Arena in Las Vegas.
We’ll have to wait and see if this is the case. It’s arguably in the best interest of Crawford and Porter to take it to a purse bid.
Obviously, Arum wants to avert that from happening because there would be the potential of an outside promoter outbidding Top Rank, as we saw earlier this year with Triller winning the purse bid to stage the Teofimo Lopez vs. George Kambosos Jr. fight.
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn is already saying he’s ready to bid for the Crawford vs. Porter fight if it goes to a purse bid. If Hearn were to win the bid, he would stage the fight on the DAZN platform, which wouldn’t be good for Arum and ESPN.
Arum said he spoke to PBC yesterday, and he believes Porter (31-3-1, 17 KOs) is basically agreed to the fight, and he’s hoping Crawford (37-0, 28 KOs will agree as well so that he can announce the fight next week.
“We talked to PBC as late as yesterday, and it looks like Porter is on board or close to being on board, and hopefully Terence and we’ll announce that fight next week hopefully,” said Bob Arum to ESNEWS about the Crawford vs. Porter fight.
“We want it in Vegas at the Mandalay Bay, and we’re holding the arena for November 20th.,” said Arum.
Porter, 33, hasn’t done much to rate a world title shot after losing his WBC welterweight title to IBF champion Errol Spence Jr. in 2019. Since that fight, Porter has fought just once, beating little-known bottom-dweller Sebastian Formella over a year ago in August 2020.
The World Boxing Organization should have had Porter fight in a WBO title eliminator against a quality fighter like Vergil Ortiz Jr. or Jaron Ennis. I think Porter would lose badly to both of those guys at this point.
If you count Porter’s controversial win over Yordenis Ugas as a loss, as many boxing fans do, he’s lost two out of his last three fights. Clearly, Porter doesn’t rate a world title shot against Crawford, given his poor performances in the last two years.
It’ll be interesting to see if the Crawford vs. Porter fight is announced next week. Maybe it will, but it wouldn’t surprise me if neither of these guys is on board yet.
If it goes to a purse bid, it’ll be fun to see if Arum is willing to out-bid Matchroom and Triller Fight Club to stage the Crawford vs. Porter fight.
It would be a shame if Arum were to lose the bid because this is the first A-level opponent for Crawford’s long 13-year professional career. Although Crawford has captured world titles in three weight classes, he’s beaten weaker opposition to win those belts.
That’s the sad part, which shows you how badly watered the weight classes are nowadays. Even moderately talented fighters are capable of winning world titles if maneuvered well by their promoters.