Tony Bellew believes the Errol Spence Jr. vs. Terence Crawford fight can happen, and it’ll be easy to make. Bellew says all that needs to happen for the Spence-Crawford mega-clash is for the IBF or WBC to make Crawford the mandatory for welterweight champion Spence (27-0, 21 KOs). Once that happens, the fight will go to a purse bid, and it’ll get made.
Thus far, the sanctioning bodies haven’t hinted about making WBO champion Crawford (38-0, 29 KOs), and it’s not looking like they were will before the Nebraska native hangs up his gloves or gets beaten.
Bellew has a naive belief about how easy it would be for the Crawford vs. Spence fight to happen.
Crawford asking price is too high
Tim Smith of PBC said last week that the reason why the Spence vs. Crawford fight hasn’t helped is “economics. He [Crawford] hasn’t been built into a pay-per-view star.
“It’s not my job to tell anybody how to tell him [Crawford] how to make him a pay-per-view star. They’re not buying it [Spence vs. Crawford] anyway,” said Smith about his belief that boxing fans WON’T buy the Spence-Crawford fight on PPV.
“They’re going to steal the fight,” said Smith on his belief the fans will steal the Spence-Crawford fight by piracy rather than paying for it.
Smith says that Crawford’s asking price for a fight with Spence would be TOO HIGH for the match to be feasible. In other words, Crawford would price himself out.
Given his track record for PPV fights, it’s not going to be doable to make the fight between them if Crawford asks for too much. Crawford’s past PPV fights against Viktor Postol, Amir Khan, and Shawn Porter didn’t bring in huge numbers.
It’s too risky for a promoter to stick his neck out by investing a tremendous amount of money in making the fight between Crawford and Spence. If it fails to bring in a lot of buys, the promoter will take a financial bath and lose millions.
Bellew explains how Spence-Crawford can happen
“If Errol Spence is this big box office draw, why did he have to get on a plane to come to Sheffield to challenge Kell Brook,” said Bellew to the DAZN Boxing Show.
“Huge stars don’t go abroad to fight someone of their own choice. Do you see Canelo travel? We don’t see huge mega PPV stars travel.”
It’s already been established that Spence is a bigger PPV draw than Crawford, and that’s all that counts.
Yeah, Spence isn’t a big draw like fighters from the past like Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr, but he’s the #1 star in the 147-lb division today.
You can argue that Conor Benn is the second most popular welterweight in the division. Eddie Hearn keeps matching Benn carefully; he could soon be the #1 star in the division, even without fighting anybody.
“Errol Spence has nowhere to go; Terence Crawford has nowhere to go. They need each other,” said Bellew.
I can’t entirely agree with Bellew about his view that Spence has nowhere to go. He’s fighting WBA champion Yordenis Ugas next. Assuming Spence wins that fight, he’s got the following options:
- Conor Benn
- Vergil Ortiz Jr
- Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis
- Josh Taylor
- Jose Ramirez
Spence has plenty of options after his next fight against Ugas, but I’m not sure Crawford is in the same enviable position due to his track record for PPV fights.
“All the sanctioning bodies need to call Terence Crawford as Errol Spence’s mandatory, and we’re going to purse bids,” said Bellew.
“When we go to purse bids, believe you and me, you’ll see how big that fight is because that’s a $50/$60m fight. No questions asked,” said Bellew.