Terence Crawford throws shade at Errol Spence Jr
It’s no surprise that when WBA super world welterweight champion Manny “Pac Man” Pacquiao fought Yordenis Ugas, the boxing world was disappointed. Yet, no one was more crestfallen than IBF and WBC welterweight champion Errol “The Truth” Spence Jr (27-0, 21 KO’s). The Truth was Pacquiao’s original opponent but had to withdraw with an eye injury.
Initially, many folks thought that Pac Man would shred Ugas once in the ring. Unfortunately for Pacquiao fans, nothing of the sort took place. Instead, a very stale and immobile version of the Filipino showed up and was thoroughly outboxed. In fact, the performance was so unimpressive that the desire to see Pac Man fight Spence near completely evaporated.
SALTING THE WOUND
Not everyone was upset with the way events transpired, though. The Truth’s biggest divisional rival, WBO 147-pound champion Terence “Bud” Crawford (37-0, 28 KO’s), was rather tickled with the situation. Since Bud entered the division three years ago, the boxing populace has begged for him to face Spence. Actually, at this point, the boxing world would like to see Crawford fight any of the top guys at welterweight. Yet, Spence is clearly at the top of the list. At different points, the two camps have feigned like something was happening but the showdown has never come close to being finalized.
In the not too distant past, it was stated that Crawford was going to get the Pac Man fight first. It was even reported that Pacquiao had signed his half of the paperwork. Confusingly though, it was ultimately Crawford who was unhappy with the dealings and would not sign his half of the contract. Moves like this have only furthered the talking point that Bud is a prima-donna and is beyond content to compete with subpar competition. Even with this being the case, the Nebraskan native enjoys needling Spence. And in the aftermath of the Pacquiao v Ugas bout, Bud was quick to go to his social media to antagonize the Truth.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
To be honest though, these posts by Crawford are more irritating than anything else. If there was even the remote possibility that the two were going to fight, this would be encouraging. Sadly though, as stated before, Bud has shown zero desire or effort to face anyone of note. He won’t even suggest a name that he is interested in. He has belittled the idea of fighting Shawn Porter, Keith Thurman and #1 (WBO) welterweight Vergil Ortiz Jr, among others.
Even more maddening, Bud has shown an inflexible loyalty to his Top Rank promotional team. This has been problematic because Top Rank, outside of Bud himself, has zero welterweight competition to match him with. Even worse than this, Top Rank top dog Bob Arum has publicly degraded Crawford more than once. Arum famously said that he’d already lost a fortune on Crawford and couldn’t care less if he stayed or left. The legendary promoter even admitted that he singlehandedly killed a potential Pacquiao versus Crawford fight years ago. When Arum did this, both of Pac Man and Bud were in the Top Rank stable.
At this point in time, Bud appears to be extremely content resting on his past accomplishments and collecting his minimum fight guarantee. He has insinuated that he might move up but, thus far, this seems like those comments were somewhat tongue in cheek. Yet, if Crawford did move up and continued to face this tepid level of competition, the anger and frustration aimed at him is likely to only increase.
Also, its silly of Crawford to say that Spence ‘needs’ him. The Truth could very easily fight Ugas in his next outing. If victorious, he would have all the belts minus Crawford’s WBO strap. This would put more pressure on Bud, not Spence. If Crawford still refused to fight at that point, as difficult as it is to imagine, he would look even more foolish than he does now. Let’s just hope and pray that Crawford gets his mind right and takes on some meaningful competition, ideally Spence, very soon!
By: Bakari Simpson
