By Chris Williams: Promoter Lou DiBella thinks that Terence Crawford needs to think before he opines on different subjects such as the coronavirus. This past week, Crawford gave an interview he sounded cavalier about the risks that the deadly COVID-19 virus presents.
DiBella says WBO welterweight champion Crawford (36-0, 27 KOs) is “ignoring science” about his personal opinions on the coronavirus, and he worries that “impressionable people” could be influenced by what Crawford is saying.
What Crawford says about the pandemic won’t impact what move the U.S government takes. They still have the country locked down, and there’s no word when organized sports will be allowed to continue.
Crawford’s comments bothers Lou
“Bud is a smart guy, and he’s a great fighter, but he should shut his mouth,” said DiBella to Seconds Out about Crawford needing to pipe down on talking about the virus situation. “I’m sensitive to people when somebody says ‘stay in your lane’ because we’re all entitled to be rounded people and have your opinions and have thoughts ane express them.
“Hopefully, this is a free country. I’m starting to question that a little bit, but hopefully, it’s a free country. But when you’re sitting there opining in the face of science and data, and you’re just ignoring science and data and stream of consciousness and throwing out potentially dangerous and damaging thoughts, it troubles me. And Bud isn’t Dr. Fauci.
“It doesn’t shock me on a podcast that he would spew some stuff that I wouldn’t want to hear. I would rather that going after clickbait news entities out there would be careful about celebrity nonsense they’re putting out there that might affect impressionable people and create potentially behaviors that might be dangerous.
“So for me, Bud is entitled to his opinion. I’ve always respected the guy, but I didn’t like that stream of consciousness. I didn’t agree with it, and I didn’t like the attention it was getting from boxing press, particularly the boxing press that wasn’t going out there with an opinion.
“They were just reporting Bud’s opinion because for a young fighter, a young athlete and a young person in Nebraska, where Bud is a superstar completely. In Nebraska, Bud is an influencer in boxing. I don’t want to see people influenced by stupid f**** behavior, even if it’s from a great athlete,” said DiBella.
When a fighter is famous, they have a soapbox that they can stand on to talk abt their beliefs. Unfortunately, fans listen and if they admire that person, they’ll follow what they say.
DiBella talks about Crawford’s legacy
“I don’t know,” said DiBella when asked if Crawford’s legacy will be hurt due to him not facing the really good welterweights,” said DiBella. “It takes two to tango. So it’s not just Top Rank and Bud that need to make a deal. It’s PBC and Haymon.
“If the fighters come back from this pandemic and demand match-ups. On the one hand, I think that’ll greatly aide the efforts to get the biggest fights. On the other hand, all these PBC, DAZN, ESPN, there’s going to be business pressures in all of those areas and loads of fighters expecting to get activity.
“There’s going to be pressures that cause more PBC vs. PBC, DAZN vs. DAZN and ESPN vs. ESPN match-ups. But time will tell. Yes, it’s going to harm him [Crawford] if he never fought the best welterweights of his time. Yes, it’s going to harm him, but he’s not the only one being harmed,” said DiBella.
It’s getting to the point where Crawford is going to need to start fighting the quality fighters in the 147 and 154-pound weight classes before it’s too late.
Crawford would like to fight the PBC welterweights like Keith Thurman, Errol Spence Jr., and Danny Garcia. He may never fight any of them.
Crawford will be turning 33 in September, and he may be done for 2020. He already said this week that he won’t fight behind closed doors unless he’s paid extra by his promoters. If not, he won’t fight.
Fighters getting brave during lockdown
“Why are all these fighters calling each other out? Everybody is as brave as f*** now,” said DiBella in response to Keith Thurman talking about wanting to fight Crawford. “‘I’ll get in there and fight you tomorrow.
“Let’s fight in my mother’s backyard.’ Where were these guys two years ago or a year ago? I mean, right now with no one fighting, everyone is getting brave. Okay, I want to see this attitude continue when we’re back in the ring. Everybody right now is an armchair warrior,” said DiBella.
It is interesting how the fighters are now calling different guys out, and it makes you wonder why they weren’t doing that before. However, a lot of the trash-talking won’t amount to anything because the fights aren’t going to happen.
For example, Crawford and WBC junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo were jawing at each other this week on Twitter. A lot of boxing fans got excited about it, believing that Crawford might move up to 154 to challenge Charlo for his WBC belt. That’s not going to happen though. Crawford is at 147, and he’s likely to finish out his career there.
He doesn’t sound motivated to move up to 154 or 160 to take on the big dogs. Crawford’s promoter Bob Arum compares him to Sugar Ray Leonard. Thus far, Crawford hasn’t shown the same willingness to move up in wait the way Sugar Ray did when he took on middleweight champion Marvin Hagler and super middleweight Danny Lalonde.
“Crazy money” spent on boxing
“Politicians from all over the world have described this [global pandemic] as the great equalizer, right? I’ll tell you what this has done in boxing. Crazy money was being spent on multiple platforms,” said DiBella.
“Frankly, without great results. Insane money was being spent, and overall the quality of programming in fights has not been improving. It’s not gotten better because of crazy money has been getting spent. The bubble has now been burst, but it was going to burst anyway. But no with the [global pandemic], the bubble has burst.
“Where are we going to go from here? We’re going to find out, and the fans are going to have something to do with finding that out. When we come back into a global recession are we going to see people willing to pay in the United States $70 and $80 for a pay-per-view? I don’t know.
“I have my doubts. Will DAZN have an easy time establishing their subscriber base, which admittingly they knew they had to grow anyway. I don’t know. But I can tell you there’s going to be a big adjustment. Fighters, particularly the star guys, you’re not going to see Three and four million dollar paydays for fights that are pedestrian.
“Danny Garcia, I don’t see when we come back, Bud Crawford or Danny Garcia making $3 million to fight Bozo the Clown. So I think we’re going to see wholesale changes in our industry. Some of them would come anyway. But when I look at what went on in the last five years, billions of dollars were spent,” said DiBella.
It’s disappointing that fighters have been getting huge money in the last five years without taking risky fights. Boxing fans have been paying for high-price pay-per-view events that have been mismatches and with terrible undercards.
Promoters will be pressured to create the BEST product
“More money was spent on boxing in the United States than what was spent in my 30 years in the sport,” said DiBella. “For what? For overall mediocre product. We had s*** loads of money burned without building a fan base.
“Do I think the streaming money and the crazy money we’ve seen in the last five years was a positive for the sport of boxing?
“No. I think it was relatively neutral. A lot of people made a lot of money. A lot of promoters like Eddie [Hearn] made a lot of money. Golden Boy made a lot of money, and Canelo made a lot of money. Arum has a good deal at ESPN.
“People did very well. But as a whole, did boxing rise in terms of its popularity. Did the demographic advertising get more attractive to advertisers? Not really. We didn’t see wholesale changes for the positive in the sport. We saw a lot of money being spent.
“Now that’s going to adjust, but maybe the adjustment is going to create a necessity to create the best product. But time will tell. We still have different avenues, particularly with boxing in the U.S. You have an ESPN avenue, a PBC avenue, and you still have, when DAZN gets back up and running again, a DAZN avenue,” said DiBella.
It’s doubtful that the product will improve in the future. While some promoters like Matchroom Boxing do appear to be working hard to put on great fights, we’re not seeing the same effort with others. Too many mismatches and undercards that look like they’ve been thrown together without a care about the fans.