Terence Crawford-Top Rank To Divorce Soon After Tonight?

Saturday night marks the fourth title defense for WBO World Welterweight Champion and one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the game, Terence Crawford. But, bigger than the subplot of him battling England’s Kell Brook in a 12-round title defense is the looming likelihood the Crawford wants out of his deal with Top Rank Boxing.

It’s something that we covered during the latest preview edition of the Big Fight Weekend podcast with special guests Marquis Johns, senior writer for the site and Abraham Gonzalez of NewYorkFights.com,

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Gonzalez gave some insight into Crawford and ESPN promoting him so heavily this week leading up to the main event. And, that it would be in part that Crawford has a desire to end their deal, as soon as possible, with Top Rank.

“I get it that ESPN is doing that… he apparently only has a few months left with Top Rank. So, maybe, they’re ‘slamming that home’ to retain his services?,”

Gonazlez continued with a theory that he has about Crawford’s next moves,

“He would move up and fight (WBO Jr. Middleweight champ, Patrick) Teixeira, and then do the Undisputed fight against (Jermell) Charlo in 2021.”

While the Teixeira is a Matchroom Boxing fighter, Charlo is one that is controlled by Premier Boxing Champions. And, that’s the same problem that Crawford has had with a Welterweight huge showdown.

That includes, unbeaten Errol Spence, who will defend the Unified WBC and IBF versions of the championship against Danny Garcia in a December 5th Pay-per-View in Arlington Texas. Also, Manny Pacquiao who still has at least one fight remaining on his PBC deal and is looking to fight in the first quarter of 2021. The future Hall-of-Famer owns the WBA World Welterweight Championship that he won off of Keith Thurman in July of 2019.

As Crawford has found out the hard way over the course of the last three calendar years, he has no hope of any kind of match up with Spence, Pacquiao, Thurman, or even former WBC 147 lb. champ, Shawn Porter. Or, for any of the other former Champion or upcoming welterweights that PBC has.

Instead, Crawford has been relegated to fighting the likes of Amir Khan and Egidijus Kavalauskas and now, Brook. Even though Brook is a former IBF world champion himself, Spence beat him by TKO three years ago in England and this is certainly not a mega-fight.

To follow up on the angle of Crawford’s unhappiness, Mike Coppinger, Insider for the Atheltic, also wrote on Friday about the situation. And, that Crawford’s attorney wrote to Top Rank about their displeasure with the lack of “quality opponents” during his deal.

Coppinger also revealed that the unbeaten Crawford’s multi-year contract with the promotion apparently expires in October of 2021. However, the Omaha, Nebraska, native wants out much before then to pursue one of the opponents above, if Arum and Top Rank can’t get a deal.

With all of that as the background, now let’s see if Crawford is focused on the business at hand tonight in Vegas and helps his leverage, at least some, whether he leaves Top Rank or not?