NEW YORK – If Terence Crawford would allow Oscar De La Hoya to promote him, “The Golden Boy” is confident he can help put together another megafight with Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions.
De La Hoya informed a group of reporters Wednesday that he has urged Crawford to let him handle negotiations for the most meaningful fight that can be made for Crawford – his seemingly ill-fated showdown with Errol Spence Jr. Crawford and De La Hoya have discussed doing business together in recent months in part because one of the welterweight contenders Golden Boy Promotions represents, Alexis Rocha, is the mandatory challenger for Crawford’s WBO 147-pound championship.
“We respect each other,” De La Hoya said of Crawford after a Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia press conference at Palladium Times Square. “You know we’re exploring our options, opportunities. You know, he does have a mandatory with one of our fighters. But look, I’m telling Crawford, ‘Let me represent you. Let me help you in making the Errol Spence fight happen.’ You know, we have experience with how Al Haymon works. We have experience with how PBC works. And we work hand in hand, as you can see. Making this [Davis-Garcia] fight was not easy, but we made it happen. So now if we can open that door and have dialogue, and make Crawford versus Errol Spence happen, boxing fans will watch the best fights possible, you know, in the near future.”
Negotiations for Crawford-Spence infamously fell apart last fall, which led Crawford to fight Russia’s David Avanesyan. Crawford (39-0, 30 KOs) knocked out Avanesyan (29-4-1, 17 KOs) in the sixth round December 10 at CHI Health Center in Crawford’s hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.
Whereas Spence (28-0, 22 KOs) appears headed for a 12-round, 154-pound fight against another PBC fighter, Keith Thurman (30-1, 22 KOs, 1 NC), sometime late in the spring, De La Hoya expects Crawford to defend his title against Rocha (22-1, 14 KOs) within the next three months. The 35-year-old Crawford is not contractually bound to a promoter or a platform, which could enable De La Hoya’s company to at least temporarily deliver one of the best boxers, pound-for-pound, in the sport to DAZN, Golden Boy’s exclusive streaming partner.
“We do have a purse bid [for Crawford-Rocha] coming up in the next few weeks,” De La Hoya said, “so if we can come up with a formula with some kind of, if we can come out with an agreement, then the fight’s gonna happen relatively soon. These guys wanna fight each other really bad, so I can see this fight taking place within the next three months.”
De La Hoya hopes they can reach an agreement before the March 19 deadline established by the WBO, which will schedule a purse bid if necessary. A purse bid would favor Crawford by a 75-25 split.
“Well, it all depends on what Crawford is asking for,” De La Hoya said. “It all depends on what Rocha is gonna cost. And we’ll take it from there.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.