By Robert Segal: Last Saturday’s so-called fight of the decade between welterweight champions Errol Spence Jr. and Terence Crawford brought in roughly half the combined revenue of last April’s light welterweight catchweight mega-clash between Gervonta Davis & Ryan Garcia.
While the Spence-Crawford fight did do excellent numbers with PPV and gate revenue, it wasn’t in the same ballpark as the much bigger Tank Davis vs. Ryan Garcia fight.
Who’s to blame for Spence & Crawford not doing to the expected mega numbers? It’s a combination of things.
Crawford can take a lot of the blame, as he seemed irritable throughout the build-up, snapping at reporters, appearing defensive to the question being asked, and giving many short answers. He looked like the Grand Inquisitor was questioning him, with his feet being put to the fire.
At times, it looked like Crawford didn’t want to be there and wasn’t even going to try to fake it to sell the fight.
Spence was usually in a good mood, but he looked weak & tired towards the end of the promotion, showing the ill effects of draining down from 200+ lbs to reach 147.
However, even in his drained state, Spence did a lot more work promoting the fight, and it seemed he was doing the work of two people to make up for the way Crawford was doing the minimum.
Gervonta Davis vs. Ryan Garcia revenue
- Ticket Revenue – $22.8million
- PPV Revenue – $100 million+
Errol Spence vs. Terence Crawford revenue
- Ticket Revenue – $21 million
- PPV Revenue – $55 million+
Spence shouldn’t retire
“I believe like that’s not the Errol that we know, and I know he’ll be back, and better,” said Anthony Joshua to Fighthype, making excuses for Errol Speence Jr. to help explain away his performance against Terence Crawford.
“If you just look at it for what it is, and I rate Terence Crawford even before this fight. Bud is an elite fighter, and so is Errol. I know that wasn’t the guy I’ve watched many times.
“I didn’t see everything in training camp because we train at different times, but I did see him working hard. But from a performance point of view, I think they should have confidence in themselves in a rematch, knowing that if they get whatever was happening in the training camp, which was going wrong if they get it right, I think they’ll be able to give Bud a much tougher fight.
“Errol didn’t get knocked out on his back; he didn’t land on his back; he got stopped on his feet. So run it back; let’s go again. I think they should definitely go again,” said Joshua.
