Bob Arum says he’ll be revealing the name of Terence Crawford’s next opponent in the next ten days. Arum states that Crawford (36-0, 27 KOs) will be fighting in November in defending his WBO welterweight title, and he plans on making a “big announcement” soon.
Arum isn’t giving any hints about who the 32-yar-old Crawford will be facing in November, but you rest assured that it won’t be Errol Spence Jr or Manny Pacquiao. Those two are the ones that Crawford has hoped to be fighting, but it’s not happening this year.
Crawford’s next opponent is expected to come from this small list:
- Sergey Lipinets
- Kell Brook
- Shawn Porter
- Ray Robinson
Porter is likely way out of the price range for Top Rank as a potential opponent for Crawford. Top Rank would need the gate revenue for them to get Porter to agree to face Crawford in 2020, and that’s not going to be there.
Former IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook would cost a lot as well, and he might have problems traveling to the U.S because of the travel restrictions. At best, Crawford will probably need to wait until 2021 to face Brook.
Ray Robinson (24-3-2, 12 KOs) fought Crawford in the amateur ranks. He would be a similar type of obscure opponent as the last guy he fought in Egidijus Kavaliauskas, and there wasn’t a lot of interest from fans in that fight.
Crawford’s next fight to be announced shortly
“We’re looking at a major Terence Crawford fight in November, and everybody will have to be patient,” said Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said to IFL TV. “But hopefully, in the next ten days, we can announce what we have.
“I’m very optimistic that Terence will be fighting in November. It’s going to be a big announcement, hopefully. We’re on tenterhooks because a lot of the questions zero in on ‘can there be crowds and how many in the crowd?’
It looks like Crawford may have backed down from his request of wanting to be paid the full price for his fights behind closed doors. Terence was saying that he wouldn’t agree to compete in 2020 unless he receives the same kind of money that he usually gets when fighting in front of a crowd.
Boxing fans want to see Crawford start fighting the upper echelon welterweights in the division because he’s not been doing that since moving up to 147 in 2018.
Crawford is ranked highly in the pound-for-pound list and well-respected by the network commentators; the fact remains that he’s been facing lesser opposition both at 147 and 140.
Fans want to see if Crawford is as good as the sports analysts say he is because they can’t agree with them when they see him fighting fringe level opposition over and over. Mikey Garcia is one of the many people that have noticed that Crawford isn’t being matched against dangerous guys.
Crawford’s opponents since moving to 147:
- Amir Khan
- Jose Benavidez
- Jeff Horn
- Egidijus Kavaliauskas
Yordenis Ugas or Shawn Porter would be great options for Crawford to fight to show the fans that he’s the real deal. If not them, then Crawford should look to face someone like Regis Prograis.
Arum Dealing with crowd size issues
“All of those issues we’ve never dealt with before. Not Eddie Hearn, not Frank Warren, not me, not Al Haymon,” said Arum in staging fights with a limited number of boxing fans.
“We’re all in a different universe, so to speak, but we’ll make it out. This will all be over one day, and we’ll be back to normal dissing each other,” said Arum.
Crawford’s next fight will be without fans, and that’s probably going to impact Top Rank’s ability to come up with enough money to pay for a good opponent.