Email WhatsApp 90 Shares

Light welterweight champion Terence “Bud” Crawford (32-0, 23 KOs) will be fighting on March 10th, according to his promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank, This is supposed to be the 29-year-old Crawford’s first fight at 147, as he’s moving up in weight from 140 to start campaigning at welterweight.

Crawford wants to fight WBA/WBC welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman right away, but that’s not going to happen. Thurman says Crawford has got to prove himself at 147 before he’ll fight him. Errol Spence, the IBF champion, is interested in fighting Crawford, but his manager Al Haymon will likely not make that fight anytime soon due to the politics of boxing. Haymon rarely works with Arum. That’s the way it is with these two guys. Fights between Top Rank and Haymon are rare.

The idea is for Crawford to face WBO 147 lb. champion Jeff Horn at some point in 2018 or Manny Pacquiao if he comes back and is able to defeat the Australian. It’s more likely that Crawford will wind up facing Horn.

Even if Pacquiao defeats Horn, he’s mostly going to retire rather than fighting the Nebraska native and being used as a stepping stone to turn him into Top Rank’s next star. You can understand it from Pacquiao’s perspective. He’s done great things in boxing in his long 23-year pro career, and he has a chance to become the president of the Philippines.

It won’t look good for him if he’s seen getting beaten by Crawford. If the shoe was on the other foot and Crawford was about to turn 39 and Top Rank wanted to match him against one of their young lions, it’s not likely he would take that fight if the chances for him to win ere extremely low.

Crawford’s opponent for his debut at 147 is still unclear. Since the 86-year-old Arum likes to match his fighters from his Top Rank stable against each other, it’s possible that we could see Crawford fight one of his fighters.

Arum has Russian Konstantin Ponomarev ranked in the top 15 at welterweight, so he’s always an option. However, I’m not sure that Arum will want to feed the Russian to Crawford, because it would be such a waste. It would be better off for Crawford to fight someone else in the welterweight division. Arum has the money to get a top contender to face Crawford if he’s willing to pay them. Crawford is not the type that fighters tend to want to face, however. He’s got several strikes going against him when it comes to getting top guys to face him. They are as follows:

• He’s a counter puncher – The top fighters in boxing hate to fight counter punchers

• Crawford switches stances frequently – He’s just as good fighting in the southpaw stance as he is in the orthodox stance. Crawford gets positive results fighting at southpaw, and it makes it difficult for his opponents to prepare for him

• Crawford is highly mobile – He moves quite a bit, forcing his opponents to chase him. Fighters don’t like runners

• He’s a big puncher or at least at 140, he’s a big puncher