We have an excellent welterweight title fight on tap when Terence Crawford puts his belt on the line against former titleholder Shawn Porter. The November 20th bout will mark Crawford’s final fight of his current contract with Top Rank, and speaking to Fight Hype about Crawford’s expiring deal is Bob Arum — who thinks Crawford could certain re-up with his company if he’s satisfied with how things turn out with this particular promotion.
“You have to understand, most of the years I’ve promoted boxing we never had long-term contracts, not with Hagler, not with any of them,” Arum said of Crawford’s expiring deal. “And so we’ll fight the fight and I think it’s easier to deal with a fighter that way, when it’s fight to fight, because then he doesn’t think ‘hey, they’re really pressuring me because they have a contract.’ Now if he’s a free agent and he has a good relationship with you , he’s had a good experience, he’s gonna want to continue doing fights with you. And I really, personally, like that.
“I think if (Crawford) has a good experience with this promotion and it goes well, yeah (he will re-sign), because again, Terence isn’t going in the ring unless somebody’s putting up a really good guarantee. And, you know, there aren’t that many people around that will.”
Arum is probably correct in the notion that there aren’t too many major promoters who will be willing and able to guarantee the purse demands that Terence Crawford will want going forward, but he’ll likely have some stiff competition among those who can.