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Philippines, 18 Apr 2024 |
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TERRENCE CRAWFORD CAN BE A PAY PER VIEW STAR! By Ralph Rimpell PhilBoxing.com Sat, 15 Jan 2022  Yes, dear reader who just clicked onto the article. Pound 4 Pound (P4P) #1 fighter Terrence Crawford, former lightweight champion (135lbs), former undisputed junior welterweight (WBA/WBC/WBO/IBF) 4 belt champion at 140lbs, and undefeated WBO welterweight champion (147lbs) who sports an undefeated record 38-0, 29KOs can be a Pay Per View (PPV) Star, if a PPV boxing star fights him. There is no denying Crawford’s talent. Crawford is a dangerous fighter, which is likely why when negotiations begin for a fight against him potential opponents want the larger share of the financial revenue. Arguments such as Crawford does not generate significant financial revenue are misleading. Why? Boxing fans who follow boxing religiously know who Crawford is and are aware of his talent. The mainstream audience who will tune in for the occasional big PPV fight for the average price of $79.99 and afterwards resume their favorite sport ex. football, baseball, hockey, etc. don’t know who Crawford is. Unless Crawford fights a name fighter who has a proven track record of selling PPV which will give Crawford the mainstream exposure on the big PPV stage for Crawford to later carry his own PPV fight with another name fighter, the excuse Crawford can’t generate significant PPV revenue will always be made for Promoters not making matches with other prominent welterweights. This formula (Crawford against a fighter who is a PPV draw) is simple. The PPV Kings that fought in or around Crawford’s weight classes during his career were arguably Oscar De La Hoya, Juan Manuel Marquez, Floyd Mayweather, and Manny Pacquiao are now ALL retired from professional boxing. Crawford’s last opportunity to fight an established PPV star was lost when Pacquiao, whose camp had been negotiating for a fight with Crawford last summer, opted to sign for a fight against WBC/IBF welterweight champion Errol Spence, who ended up withdrawing due to an eye injury. Yordenis Ugas, WBA welterweight champion, replaced Spence and defeated Pacquiao. After the defeat, Pacquiao retired and decided to enter politics full time in the Philippines. The only active fighter who is a current PPV star that fought anywhere near Crawford’s weight class is Canelo Alvarez who was champion at super welterweight which is 154lbs, 8 pounds heavier than welterweight. Canelo is currently the undisputed super welterweight (168lbs) champion and has his sights set on fighting at cruiserweight (200lbs). It appears to be a safe guess that Canelo vs Crawford will not be signed. Canelo generated 800,000 sales for his fight against Caleb Plant. Canelo is the undisputed star off PPV currently. That’s a fact ( Crawford’s PPV fights sales are listed at 150,000. Errol Spence’s highest PPV fight when he fought Mikey Garcia was 375,000. That’s significantly better, but keep in mind it took two fighters to sell Spence-Garcia. Mikey Garcia was an excellent opponent for Spence because Garcia was undefeated, won world championships in 4 weight division, and was attempting to make history by winning a 5th title (Spence’s welterweight crown) in another weight division (147lbs). That was an excellent fight to sell. That was not a hard sell for all who promoted that fight. The view on Crawford is he will ask for the larger portion of the financial revenue because of his talent and his accomplishments as arguably the best fighter Pound for Pound (P4P). He is also a dangerous fight for any other welterweight as he is undefeated. Fighters start well against him in early rounds but Crawford has an excellent ability to adapt and end up beating up his opponents. This was seen in the lighter weights (135lbs-140lbs) all the way up to his current weight class (147lbs) against fighters like Gamboa, Horn, and recently Porter. Fighting a PPV star and winning in the process would have been Plan A. So what should be Plan B for Crawford to secure other champions to fight him moving forward? Crawford will have to accept REASONABLY less money to fight the other top welterweight IN ORDER make “big money” later. It was reported Errol Spence was initially willing to offer 60-40 in financial revenue in his favor to fight Crawford. After some back and forth statements on social media between Crawford and Spence the percentages went to 70-30, to possibly 80-20 https://www.boxing247.com/boxing-news/172471/172471. Remember when future Boxing Hall of Famer Floyd “Money” Mayweather opted out of his contract with a $750,000 payment to Top Rank in 2006? Mayweather also rejected a reported $8 million offer for a fight against stablemate Antonio Margarito at that time. Mayweather believed in himself and his talents. In 2007 Mayweather secured a 20 million dollar payday to fight Oscar De La Hoya in one of the most successful PPV fights in history. Mayweather just kept wining and in 2013 he signed a six fight deal for 200 million dollars with the Showtime network. Mayweather collected every dime of that money because he just kept winning! Mayweather’s situation is a lot different from Crawford because Mayweather was able to secure big fights, but the principle is the same. Crawford like Mayweather has to invest in himself. In Crawford’s case he will have to take Reasonable “short money” now for “big money” later. If Crawford can defeat the other top welterweights impressively that will give him the exposure to the mainstream that he needs to generate PPV dollars. That appears to be the way Crawford can be a PPV star. Boxing Notes Fight fans are getting impatient as to who newly crowned lightweight champion George Kambosos will make his first defense against. Will it be Devin Haney, Tank Davis, Vasyl Lomachenko, Ryan Garcia, or Shakur Stevenson? It would also be nice if there was lightweight tournament to see who the best fighter is…Terrence Crawford has recently filed a lawsuit basically alleging that Top Rank hurt his career when he was under contract. Former Heavyweight champion George Foreman has commented publicly in support of Bob Arum while this lawsuit is still in its infancy. Perhaps Foreman should let Crawford and Arum have their day in court to discuss Crawford’s complaint in front of a Judge before Foreman takes a side…Heavyweight Luis Ortiz displayed a lot of heart in coming back from 2 knockdowns scoring 2 knockdowns of his own to impressively TKO former heavyweight champion Charles Martin. It appeared Martin was SO DAZED from Ortiz’s punches he just stood in the ring and didn’t know where he was for a split second until the Referee justifiably stopped the fight. It could be that Ortiz may still have enough is his tank to make another run at a world title and possibly win. ***Ralph Rimpell is a writer based out of New York and is a Boxing Correspondent for Philboxing.com. Ralph holds an undergraduate degree from City University of New York. He has been a Boxing Writer for over ten years having written for several top boxing websites on the World Wide Web. Before becoming a writer, Ralph's passion was for professional wrestling until he realized professional wrestling was entertainment and not a real sport. It was at that time the 1984 US Olympic team made up of future stars such as Evander Holyfield, Meldrick Taylor, Pernell Whitaker, etc. entered the professional ranks and signed with promotional outfit Main Events.It was also at that time a young exciting Heavyweight originally hailing from Brooklyn named Mike Tyson also turned professional and became the face of boxing. Young boxing fan Ralph just couldn't get enough of boxing as a large part of it was being broadcast on "free TV". As time went on, Ralph felt boxing writers were not being forthcoming with their boxing coverage, opinion pieces, interviews, etc. So Ralph decided to write an article and submitted it to a Boxing website thinking it would be deleted and ignored by the Editor. To Ralph's surprise his article was posted on their website and the readers embraced it. The rest is history. "I thank God for the Internet because it has created opportunities for writers like myself who likely would not have been given an opportunity to write for print publications. I hope someday soon to expand my role in Boxing on different levels." -- Ralph Rimpell Contact writer: RLuvsboxing@aol.com Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ralph Rimpell.  |
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