Top Rank promoter Bob Arum spent some time talking to Fight Hype about his thoughts on what is surely the biggest fight to make in the welterweight division, Errol Spence Jr vs Terence Crawford, a fight Arum did not deliver for Crawford during Crawford’s years with Top Rank, which was noted by Crawford as a reason he left the company last year.
During the conversation Arum briefly questioned Crawford’s state of mind (most likely through the lens of having Crawford filing a lawsuit against him), and also shared some insight into this weekend’s unification fight between Shakur Stevenson and Oscar Valdez.
On whether he still thinks Crawford beats Spence after Spence’s latest performance
“Well, I don’t know. Again, I always thought Crawford was the better fighter but I don’t know where Crawford’s head is at. To fight at that level that Spence showed, you have to have a clear head and make the right decisions and I don’t know if Terence is capable of that anymore.”
On if he thinks Spence vs Crawford happens
“I have no idea. Again, Terence is not in contract with us so it’s somebody else’s problem.”
On Crawford working with Top Rank fighter Shakur Stevenson in training camp
“That’s fine. I’m not gonna lower myself to demand that he leave my gym and so forth. I think we at Top Rank are above that.”
On Oscar Valdez being written off against Shakur Stevenson
“I would think that Stevenson because of his body of work probably deserves to be the favorite but I wouldn’t count Oscar Valdez out...The one thing you have to understand is Oscar relied heavily on Eddy Reynoso, who convinced him to do this fight, which tells you a lot — that they have a big chance to win the fight. Reynoso is a real smart boxing guy.
“They sort of discarded the idea of fighting Navarrette and started instituting talks with me to fight Shakur, or the winner of Shakur-Herring when the talks started.”
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