Terence Crawford’s former promoter, Bob Arum, gave a dose of reality by remarking on his recent successful PPV bout against Errol Spence Jr. last July.
The Top Rank promoter Arum noted that while Crawford is a fine talent, his marketability hasn’t matched his economic demands.
Whether that changes now that Terence has beaten Spence remains to be seen, but it’s obviously not a good sign there’s no interest from fans in seeing a second fight between them.
If the rematch bombs on PPV, it will leave Crawford in a bad position to get the Canelo Alvarez fight that he’s been hoping to get. Why would Canelo want to fight Crawford if he can’t sell?
That is to say that the unbeaten former three-division world champion Crawford hasn’t brought in the money to match the money he was paid, and Arum says his company lost revenue on his fights.
Arum said to Fight Hub TV that his company Top Rank lost “a lot of money” when Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) was winning titles, impressing, but failing to be a commercial successful.
“We lost a lot of money promoting his fights, and I wish him well, but I’m not prepared, or my company is not prepared to take those risks because, at least with Terence, it never worked out economically. Even though when you look at his performances, they were brilliant and still brilliant.
“Again, Terence did extraordinary good fighting Spence. He did very well economically, but if you ran it back and had Terence fighting Spence again, I really don’t believe it would do anything like the numbers in the first fight.”
Arum views the 36-year-old Crawford as a great talent but feels that his marketability doesn’t match his ability. Crawford has failed to become the crossover star that he needed to be for his events to bring in a lot of buys.
A second fight with Spence will likely be a disaster, given that the two are heading straight into it without Errol redeeming himself first against some of the big names at 147 or 154.
Spence’s popularity might be the main reason why his mega-fight with Terence did well last July on Showtime PPV, but now that he’s been beaten, fans don’t want to see a rematch.
As for Crawford, he could slip back into fighting in PPV events that fail to produce big numbers unless he gets lucky and is given the Canelo Alvarez fight he’s been asking for.
Most fans believe it would be a bad idea to stage a rematch between the undisputed welterweight champion Crawford and Spence (28-1, 22 KOs) after the way Terence easily handled him last July in a ninth round knockout.
