By Chris Williams: Terence Crawford is taking massive criticism from fans for pulling out of the negotiations for a match against Errol Spence Jr to sign for a fight against David Avanesyan on December 10th.
Crawford’s credibility is hurt big time with this move. After this, it’s hard to imagine Spence trusting Crawford enough to want to renew negotiations later on.
Crawford should have given Spence a heads-up that he was starting negotiations with Avanesyan so that he could move on to set up his own fight.
What’s odd is that Crawford says that he and Spence can renew negotiations after the Avanesyan fight. That doesn’t sound realistic, given what’s transpired.
After this, you can argue that they’ll never fight. Crawford burned a bridge with this move, and it’s doubtful that Spence will trust him enough to want to restart talks.
The fans see this as pretty much a duck job by Crawford to avoid a knockout loss to Spence, which would hurt his career & future money-making in the sport.
Indeed, many people think Crawford was in secret negotiations for months with Avanesyan (29-3-1, 17 KOs) while still in talks with Spence. Thus, Spence wasted the time that he could have used to set up his own fight.
With this move by Crawford (38-0, 29 KOs), I don’t know how Spence could consider restarting the negotiations with Terence after his fight with Avanesyan. Spence has been wasting his time trying to set up a fight.
If Crawford had just signed the contract months ago, they could be fighting in November.
Spence (28-0, 22 KOs) is looking to set up a fight of his own against Emantas Stanionis, but it remains to be seen whether that fight can be negotiated in time for Errol to fight in December.
Crawford is reportedly getting ten million+ dollars for the Avanesyan fight by BLK Prime, who will show the fight on pay-per-view for $39.95 per household.
The price is low compared to PPV fights nowadays, but since Crawford vs. Avanesyan isn’t a pay-per-view-worthy fight, boxing fans will likely steer clear of purchasing it.
Crawford is taking the Avanesyan fight because he didn’t want to be inactive for a year. If that was the case, he should have just stuck it out in the negotiations and fought Spence so he wouldn’t be inactive.
“These jokers are running around chasing checks. It ain’t about the fight game anymore. It’s about a check,” said Coach L [Lawrence Smalls] to YSM Sports Media about Terence Crawford signing to fight David Avanesyan on December 10th.
“I was really looking forward to the Errol Spence fight,” Crawford told ESPN. “I started communicating with [boxing manager] Al Haymon and PBC back in June. And unfortunately, they represent a fighter in Errol Spence who didn't want the fight as bad as I did."
— Mike Coppinger (@MikeCoppinger) October 21, 2022
“That right there is disrespectful. You go from unifying and fighting Errol Spence to going over there and fighting this joker that don’t nobody even know.
“They got this boy [Crawford] pound-for-pound, but he don’t fight nobody. He never fought nobody. Those jokers that he’s fighting. You put ducks in front of him. That’s all he’s been fighting is ducks.
“Y’all giving him pound-for-pound. Spence do got a better resume than him. This dude [Crawford] is getting old, so I guess he’s going to take whatever they’re going to give him.
“As long as they’re going to cash him out, he’s going to keep going and getting it. I’ve been telling mother f**** for years that Boots [Ennis] would have stopped him years ago.
“He ain’t doing nothing. He ain’t going no further. He ain’t going to fight nobody. After Avanesyan, what is he going to do after that? Yeah, he deserves criticism, and he loses a lot of respect for that. I mean, because people did have respect for him.
“Now you’re just playing yourself. That’s a sucker move right there. Ain’t no real dude going to respect you for that, and they should drop him from the rankings and pound-for-pound for doing some s**t like that.
“For him to do that, and it’s on pay-per-view. That don’t make no sense. They f**** the fight came up. They might as well get out of the way and let these young lions take over because they’re willing to fight each other.
“You can’t respect no joker like that. Hell yeah,” said Coach L when asked if Spence would have taken criticism if he chose to fight David Avanesyan. “They would have talked crazy about him, and they would have went off on him.
“This bull [Spence] been in a car accident and come right back and fought Danny [Garcia]. He coming right back, while this mother f*** [Crawford] still ain’t been in nothing, and they still ain’t fight nobody.
“He’s fighting Porter. He’s a dog, but he’s right in front of you. That s*** was a fake fight, anyway. They ain’t supposed to stop that s***. That s*** is bull s***. All that stuff he’s doing is made up.
“I told people that I never liked Terence Crawford. I never liked him as a fighter. I wanted him to fight my man Ray Robinson over here. Ray was the last one to beat him in the amateurs. Ray beat him in the amateurs and was the last person to beat him.
“Ray called him out, and he kept talking all that s***. Then they turned around and picked Mean Machine in front of Ray when Terence Crawford was supposed to have fought him.
“Ray whopped his a** because they thought Ray wouldn’t beat him. Ray ended up whooping his a**. They called it a draw, which is bull s***. Mean Machine wasn’t supposed to get that fight with Crawford, but then he ended up still getting the fight with Crawford.
“Terence Crawford still wouldn’t fight anybody. That’s why he’s holding out. He’s 35 now? 35-years-old. Basically, he’s got to get what he can get right now.
“Basically, he’s just cashing in, but you’re cashing in the wrong way, champ. You can’t be pound-for-pound when you don’t fight nobody. How can you go up with Canelo when you don’t fight nobody?
“When you look at your resume, you got a bull s*** resume. Anybody that likes Terence Crawford and likes that s*** he got a bull s*** resume. I think Boots’ resume is better than his. He don’t fight nobody,” said Coach L.
