By Chris Williams: Jermall Charlo says he’s more than willing to fight Terence Crawford at 154. Undisputed junior middleweight champion Charlo (35-1-1, 19 KOs) wants Crawford to negotiate a deal with his adviser Al Haymon, and they can fight.
It’s unclear whether a Charlo vs. Crawford fight would bring in a lot of PPV buys on Showtime. Neither of these guys has proven to show that they’re pay-per-view level fighters, and it would be a risk for the promoters if they give them huge guarantees.
Charlo states that Crawford’s former promoters at Top Rank dumped him because Bob Arum didn’t want him anymore.
Before that, Arum had complained about losing so much money on Crawford’s fights that he could build a house in Beverly Hills, California.
The median home price in that swanky area of Southern California is a cool $8.8 million, so you can imagine how much money Arum has lost promoting Crawford’s fights when he was with Top Rank. It would be interesting to know if Arum lost this much money or more promoting Crawford.
Arum had hoped to turn Crawford into a big money-making star for his TopRank promotional company, but it never happened.
He couldn’t put together fights between Crawford and Errol Spence, Manny Pacquiao, and the other top fighters in the welterweight division.
“Let’s get a big fight going. I’m down to fight,” said Jermell Charlo to Showtime Sports, talking about Terence Crawford.
The 35-year-old WBO welterweight champion Crawford recently fought for BLK Prime in his last fight, beating David Avanesyan by a sixth round knockout last December. That fight was on PPV, and it was rumored to have brought in low numbers. BLK Prime never realized the numbers.
“He ain’t fought nobody for real, for real,” Jermell continued about Crawford. “He just got out of a Top Rank contract because Bob [Arum] ain’t want his a** no more, so he just got rid of him.
“I’m not none of these guys he fought before, so it’s like. I’m undisputed for a reason. We don’t know who these last guys were, you’re signing deals with BKL, BLK and he just doing business wrong. He’s sloppy with his business.
“You come from 140; you not even strong enough to handle the s**t that I’m throwing at you,” said Charlo.
It would be risky for Crawford to go up to 154 to fight Jermell in his first contest in that weight class without getting acclimatized to the division first.