Fresh off a dominant win over Felix Diaz this past Saturday, attention has quickly turned to who Terence Crawford will take on next, and when. Well Top Rank’s Bob Arum tells ESPN he’s interested in putting together a 140lb title unification between Crawford and Julius Indongo this summer.
Arum continued by saying that he wants to make the fight, Indongo wants the fight, and that Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn (who has a promotional option with Indongo) is willing to go along with those plans.
The next question is where and when the fight would take place, which is something Arum is willing to sort out as we go along...
"First, I want to make the fight, get it done; then we'll figure out where it will be. But we are looking at the end of July, beginning of August," he said.
Indongo, who is currently recovering from a minor hand injury, also has a mandatory challenger in Sergey Lipinets who he needs to deal with. Arum, though, doesn’t seem to believe that’ll be a sticking point and says he’s hopeful that we’ll have an undisputed title unification with all four major belts on the line.
"I think the chances are very good," Arum said. "We'll go to all the organizations and tell them to quit f---ing around with the mandatories, and let's make history and unify all the titles."
This would be a pretty big deal considering that all four major belts have only been on the line three times since the late 80s, with all three fights featuring the legendary Bernard Hopkins.
But if for whatever reason they can’t get this deal to come together, Arum says that Crawford will be fighting again this summer, be it against Indongo or otherwise. Yet the network which would televise his next fight seems to be up in the air. HBO has clearly expressed to Arum that they don’t have a date in August for Crawford, nor do they have one for a proposed Vasyl Lomachenko rematch with Orlando Salido or Gilberto Ramirez taking on Jessie Hart.
In fact, when asked about a prospective television date by reporters, Arum got a little touchy about the subject, captured in this video by FightHype.
“Don’t ask me, you know, ‘did they give you a date?’ that’s yesterday’s news. I’m a f*cking promoter, I’m gonna get the fight that people want to see, I’m gonna put it on a date that I want to put it on and just wait.”
When pushed about the topic of HBO, Arum erupts...
“That’s none of your f*cking business! What the f*ck are you talking about?! HBO has done great for boxing, they’ve been very good to us, I have nothing bad to say about HBO, but they’re just a f*cking network! That’s all they are! They don’t own the business of boxing.
“And you may also want to call up the guy over at Showtime (Stephen Espinoza) and tell him the same thing! He don’t own boxing! He’s just a f*cking network that puts on stuff for their subscribers.”
If nothing else, it’s good to see the blood still pumping fiercely in the 85-year-old promoter.