Top Rank promoter Bob Arum believes the rematch between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr. won’t bring in the same kind of PPV numbers as their first fight last July.
The way that Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) dominated the former IBF, WBA & WBC welterweight champion Spence (28-1, 22 KOs), beating him up and stopping him in the ninth round, makes it unlikely that fans will be interested in seeing a rematch between them.
Crawford has never been a popular fighter with casual boxing fans, and that’s not going to change despite his victory over Spence. Omaha, Nebraska native doesn’t have a large social media following, and he’s only popular with the ultra-hardcore fans.
Dominant First Fight Casting a Shadow
Spence looked so lost inside the ring with the 35-year-old Crawford, getting beaten up the entire contest, and it’s unlikely that he’s going to be able to turn things around in the second fight.
Many boxing fans believe that the rematch is just a cash-out fight, a golden parachute, for the 33-year-old Spence to give him a final big payday before retiring. Spence isn’t going to move up to 154 and get beaten up by the mostly no-name fighters in the division for smaller paydays.
There’s no demand for a second fight between Spence & Crawford, and the only way there would be is if Errol redeemed himself by picking up a solid win or two against the likes of Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis, Devin Haney, or Tim Tszyu.
That’s not going to happen. Spence is going straight into a rematch in 2024 against Crawford, and Arum doesn’t expect the fight to sell on PPV.
Crawford’s PPV History: A Mixed Bag
Arum says he doesn’t regret Crawford no longer being with his Top Rank company. He states that his economic demands didn’t match his marketability, and his company lost money promoting his fights.
Boxing fans look at the success of Crawford’s PPV mega-fight against Spence and mistakenly assume that Terence has been a huge pay-per-view draw his entire career, and that’s not the case. He did well for Spence fight but wasn’t a PPV attraction before that.
Financial risks
“Terence Crawford is a great talent. We always said he was a great talent. We always said he’s a great talent,” said Bob Arum to Fight Hub TV when asked if he regrets not being promoting Terence Crawford’s fight with Errol Spence Jr. when he was still with his Top Rank company.
“The question is can you match up his economic demands for his actual marketability, and we were not able to do that,” Arum continued about Crawford.
There were a number of problems that kept Crawford from becoming a PPV star before he left Top Rank, and they are as follows:
- Unable to get fights against PBC welterweights
- Low social media presence
- Fighting style: A switch-hitting, highly mobile counter-puncher
- Not a trash-talker
- Reserved
“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 isn’t the only one who thinks the Crawford vs. Spence rematch won’t do big numbers on PPV. Many people don’t see it as a fight that draws any interest, especially if it’s priced at $75.
It might do well if it’s sold for $39 and it has an outstanding undercard, but it probably won’t. It’ll likely be Crawford-Spence and an undercard filled with prospects facing scrubs to make them look good.
“What people didn’t realize was you looked at Spence, and you looked at his whole career, and the one thing that was glaring was that with all his great victories and all his fights,” said Arum.
“He had fought two nothing, southpaws. So that should have indicated to everybody that Spence didn’t like fighting southpaws, and Crawford and BoMac knew that. So what did they do? They just fought him southpaw,” said Arum.
