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Terence Crawford cannot understand why even those that strongly support Errol Spence Jr. won’t simply admit that he has made a smart move monetarily in the short term.
Al Haymon hadn’t offered Crawford any guarantee for his high-stakes showdown with Spence. When BLK Prime approached Crawford with a reported eight-figure guarantee for what on paper appears to be an easier pay-per-view fight versus David Avanesyan, Crawford felt like he had little choice but to accept that offer and attempt to re-engage in negotiations for the Spence fight if both boxers win their upcoming bouts.
Crawford scoffed at the backlash from his decision during a 20-minute session streamed Tuesday night on Instagram Live.
“People mad at me because Al told me if I don’t take this fight, he’s just gonna go and Errol Spence gonna make eight figures, he’s gonna make eight figures without me,” Crawford said. “So basically, he telling me, ‘Well, you take this fight or leave it, or you got nothing,’ basically because we been dragging and dragging and dragging. … I don’t know like the type of caliber of people that he been dealing with or they’ve been dealing with.
“But I’m not the type of guy that just sit on my ass and sit on my hands for no man, to feed my family. So, you mad at me for taking a fight with a tough opponent? You know, you may not know him, but he’s a tough opponent, for a bigger purse, a guarantee that I wasn’t even gonna get [for fighting Spence]. You crazy in the head. You crazy in the head.”
The 35-year-old Crawford (38-0, 29 KOs) is heavily favored to defeat Russia’s Avanesyan (29-3-1, 17 KOs), the sixth-ranked contender for his WBO welterweight title, on December 10 at CHI Health Center in Crawford’s hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. In his next bout, Spence (28-0, 22 KOs), of DeSoto, Texas, is expected to defend his IBF, WBA and WBC 147-pound championships against another fighter affiliated with Premier Boxing Champions, perhaps rival Keith Thurman (30-1, 22 KOs, 1 NC).
Spence and Crawford continued to blame one another for their fight failing to materialize on Twitter on Wednesday night. Crawford claimed Tuesday night, though, that he felt disrespected during negotiations with Haymon, who has advised Spence throughout his career.
“So now, here we go, you know what I mean, back to square, you know what I mean, one,” Crawford said. “Like, what do you really expect? You expect me to be disrespected, ran over, stepped on and just sit there and just take it. That’s crazy. That ain’t even my style. See, me personally, I wasn’t even gonna say nuttin’ because I’m not the talkative type. And y’all pretty much know that. But sometimes, you know, you gotta say what’s real. You gotta say what’s on your mind and you gotta stop letting these people just do what they want with you.”
Crawford feels as though Haymon never actually intended to make their welterweight title unification fight for this calendar year. The three-division champion pointed to Floyd Mayweather’s comments on FightHype.com last month as evidence that PBC’s plan all along was to schedule Crawford-Spence for some point in 2023 at the earliest.
“I don’t know,” Crawford said. “But I’m gonna tell y’all like this – I don’t know how truthful it is, but Floyd say, you know, he’s the spokesman of PBC and he’s Al right-hand man. We done heard that on numerous occasions, and Floyd came out and said the fight wasn’t happening this year. So, y’all mad at me for going to get a bag? When did that ever happen. Y’all mad at me for going to get a bag? Come on, man.
“We’re gonna turn up with BLK Prime, you know, we gonna do our thing. We steppin’ up to the plate, man. They turnin’ boxing around, man. All the biggest fights. You know what I mean? Going through them. They the new wave. Hey, giving these fighters they just due. You wanna fight this guy, you wanna fight this guy, they gonna make it happen. It’s simple.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.