The title of this article was meant to be figurative. Like, Terence Crawford is on top, with a chip still on his shoulder, raging a battle that is now more internal than external.
But from seeing Crawford’s words and actions over the last couple weeks, you may have to take the Bud vs. Bud stuff literally, because the unified welterweight champ is defiantly staking his claim to NO fight in the foreseeable future.
After a couple of weeks of basking in the glow of a dominant July 29 TKO of Errol Spence to unify all four welterweight belts, the Omaha, Nebraska native went right back to pre-Spence form, shaking a virtual angry fist at “haters” on social media and railing about the injustices trying to bring him down. This time, though, he’s the man on top and seems to be revelling in doing to others what he feels was done to him.
Recent critical comments from former champs Danny Garcia and Keith Thurman lit a fuse under the three-division champ and provoked a series of posts on Twitter/X that are, honestly, a bit embarrassing from a man who has earned the right to be “above it all.”
There are two truths to what Crawford wrote.
The first truth is that he WAS the odd man out in the welterweight division. With almost all of the top talent at welterweight fighting under the PBC (Premier Boxing Champions) banner, there was no burning desire to extend a rope bridge over the great boxing divide and welcome him into the fray. There was money to be had without fighting Terence Crawford and most of the best non-Crawford fights WERE made in that time. Spence, Porter, Garcia, Thurman– with one or two exceptions– fought one another and made good money doing so. That money was as good as what they would’ve made fighting Crawford at the time, without the headache of trying to make a deal with Crawford’s then-promoter, Top Rank’s Bob Arum, who, by the way, had talked plenty about his own unwillingness to take the money risks involved in cross-company fights.
And that Arum/Top Rank issue leads to the second truth in his “cut off from the world” struggles, one that has to be pretty unpalatable for the unified champ.
Crawford’s own bad business decisions and general stubbornness (not PBC, Spence, Thurman, or Garcia) were, really, what kept him away from these big money, legacy-defining bouts for so long.
The decision to extend his contract with Top Rank in 2018 effectively ended his run at the elite of 147 before it even began.
With a reported guarantee of $3 million per purse and the promise of coveted ESPN mainstream exposure, it was understandable why he jumped to sign the deal, not long after destroying Jeff Horn for the WBO welterweight title.
In theory, there was a path to next-level stardom via ESPN and through Top Rank’s deal with the sports giant. In practice, though, that mainstream push never materialized. ESPN was not THAT into pushing its boxing content and, without bankable/marketable/competitively-viable opposition to make things compelling, Crawford just became a great fighter stuck doing good work for the enjoyment of a relatively small base of hardcore fans.
As all-around frustration mounted, Arum would push back publicly at Crawford when Crawford began pushing for bigger and better things to do.
In a late 2020 interview with The Athletic, Arum was stone cold when asked about whether his promotional company could hold on to Crawford when his contract expired.
“The question is, ‘Do we want to keep him?’ I could build a house in Beverly Hills on the money I’ve lost on him in the last three fights,” Arum blasted. “A beautiful home…The question is, ‘Does it [Crawford’s work] pay the bills?’ Look, you can have the greatest opera singer in the world. If the fans don’t support it, you’re out of business.”
Not surprisingly, it took free agency (ala Mayweather, De La Hoya, Canelo, Mikey Garcia, etc.) to open the doors to the biggest monetary gains of his career and, ultimately, to the legacy-defining win he lusted after for so long. But those five years lost chasing shadows and openings that never came, spinning his wheels with fights against Jose Benavidez, Amir Khan, and The Mean Machine, were of his own doing. In some alternate universe where Crawford realized the value of free agency and took his talents to the open market back in 2018, he’d have already notched wins over Thurman, Garcia, and a prime Porter by this time and, most probably, it would’ve been Errol Spence coming to him for a legacy fight and not the other way around.
In the present tense of this reality, Crawford faces a dilemma when it comes to “what now.” The stubbornness that kept him away from what he wanted threatens to ruin what he’s achieved.
He’s already forever ruled out fighting Thurman and Garcia, which were fights not likely to happen anyway. He’s fully dismissed the prospect of facing no. 1 contender Jaron “Boots” Ennis. A mentioned fight with unified 154 lb. champ Jermell Charlo is doubtful at this point, given Charlo’s challenge of Saul “Canelo” Alvarez at 168 on September 30 and the likelihood of Charlo not returning to 154 afterward. And now there seems to be a weight dispute over the contractually mandated rematch with Spence as reports indicate Crawford, who previously was agreeable to having the return bout at 154, is now not so agreeable to the idea.
As of right now, Crawford has no follow-up to his career-defining triumph. Other than pitching a far-away-from-happening fantasy fight with Canelo Alvarez, he’s got nothing “big” in his sights, despite spending so many years bemoaning the lack of big things to do.
Yes, Terence Crawford is on top…and rightfully so. This writer, specifically, has been a Crawford mark since at least 2013, one who’s taken plenty of heat for his insistence on ranking Bud so highly and for insisting he beats everyone in his weight range.
But, now, Crawford is the one calling the shots. And instead of laying out the legacy he’s always wanted to lay out, he’s holding grudges, dwelling in negativity, and being his own worst enemy again, insisting on doing to others what he felt was done to him.
This Me vs. The World attitude is what drove Crawford to work hard and achieve a level of greatness few thought he could reach. At this point, though, that chip on his shoulder has become a boulder and it’s weighing him down.
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