By Jim Calfa: Terence Crawford is one of the best fighters in the sport today but he’s not shown to be a pay-per-view draw says his former promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank.
Arum maintains that he’s lost money on all of the former three-division world champion Crawford’s fights, and he feels he’s NOT a PPV draw.
Terence Crawford vs. Shawn Porter = not worthy of PPV
Crawford (38-0, 29 KOs) is now a promotional free agent following his tenth round knockout win over Shawn Porter last month on November 20th, which was shown on ESPN+ PPV.
There are reports that the Crawford vs. Porter fight brought in between 130,000 to 190,000 buys, which would be disappointing numbers if true.
There was almost no talk of the Crawford-Porter fight in the week of the match, and that indicated that the boxing public wasn’t excited about this match-up.
You can’t blame that on Crawford or Top Rank. Porter brought very little to the table, given that he’d been out of the ring for well over a year, and had fought only once against that little-known Sebastian Formella in the last two years since losing to Errol Spence Jr. in September 2019.
You can argue that even if Spence, who is a PPV attraction, had picked Porter out as his opponent, he wouldn’t have brought in many buys.
Crawford is not a PPV draw says Arum
“Terence Crawford is clearly one of the best fighters in the world today, and he’s tremendously skilled,” said Bob Arum to talksport. “Unfortunately, he hasn’t been shown to be a fighter that is a draw on pay-per-view for whatever reason.
“So, we’ve put him in the best fights that we can, and unfortunately, we’ve lost money on every fight. He [Crawford] keeps insisting and I understand his point of view, ‘I’m the best, I should get paid like the best.’
“So if someone is willing to come and put up with the money Crawford is demanding, he should do a fight with another promoter if he’s going to make more money. We’re really at the limit of what we can pay him.
“Maybe somebody will pay him more and will be able to make a profit, and obviously it’s a business and so be it,” said Arum.
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn has already said he’s NOT interested in signing Crawford to his stable because he doesn’t have the fights that he wants or needs.
Crawford wants Spence and WBA welterweight champion Yordenis Ugas, and Hearn can’t offer him those fights.
It’s likely that Crawford will eventually get signed by PBC, but whether he makes the money with them that he’s hoping to get is unknown. If Premier Boxing Champions match Crawford up with Keith Thurman or Spence, they might make money, but for anyone else, it’s possible that Crawford won’t bring in a lot of PPV buys.
Fans don’t want to pay to see one-sided fights, particularly when you’re talking about a defensive artist like Crawford. The boxing public wants to see brawlers, not the counter-punching, the switch-hitting style that Crawford employs.
Arum has no problems with Crawford going elsewhere
“I’ve never had an adverse reaction to a fighter that is a contractual free agent, which Terence is, and looks for a better opportunity and more money to fight for another promotional company,” said Arum. “That’s fine.
“That’s totally legitimate, that’s business and it happens in all sports. If you’re a free agent, you’re a free agent.
“If Terence can make more money with some other company from what we’re willing to pay him, he should take it. He would be a fool not to,” said Arum.
We’ll see who ends up with Crawford and whether they’re happy. Hearn signed unbeaten Demetrius Andrade a couple of years ago, and he sounds frustrated at his inability to get big fights for him.
Whoever ends up with Crawford may find themselves equally frustrated at their inability to get big fights for him and make money. It’s not surprising that Crawford is avoided.
He’s a switch-hitting counter puncher, who spends a lot of time fighting in the southpaw stance. Southpaws have always been avoided in the sport, and Crawford is even more of a problem with his counter punching ability.