By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – Bob Arum made it clear Saturday night that he won’t wait around for an HBO date before scheduling Terence Crawford’s return to the ring.

Crawford’s promoter wants the unbeaten WBC/WBO super lightweight champion to fight sometime in the summer. If that means finding a television partner other than HBO, so be it.

“Crawford’s gonna fight this summer,” Arum said following Crawford’s superb performance against Felix Diaz on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. “If we can get the fight for the unification [against Julius Indongo], that’s fine.

“But he’s gonna fight this summer. Now don’t ask me, ‘Did [HBO] give you a date?’ That’s yesterday’s news. I’m a f***in’ promoter and I’m gonna get a fight that people wanna see. I’m gonna put it on, on a date that I wanna put it on, and just wait.”

The 85-year-old Arum made Crawford’s unification fight against Ukraine’s Viktor Postol, an easy victory for Crawford, a pay-per-view event last July 23 because he couldn’t come to an agreement with HBO to televise it live on the network. He hasn’t said he would take Crawford-Indongo to pay-per-view, too, but HBO Sports executive vice president Peter Nelson might not be willing to televise Crawford’s next fight so soon.

HBO has aired fewer fights live on the network in 2017 than usual and that trend seemingly will continue. Crawford-Diaz headlined just the fourth live boxing broadcast on HBO this year and there is just one more live event currently on the premium cable channel’s schedule (a tripleheader July 15 from Inglewood, California).

Crawford’s fight Saturday night was his first fight in more than five months and Arum wants him to be more active than that. If Arum can’t make a bout between Crawford (31-0, 22 KOs) and Namibia’s Indongo (22-0, 11 KOs), who owns the IBF, IBO and WBA 140-pound championships, Crawford will fight someone else within the super lightweight division during the summer.

“It’s gonna be a good, saleable fight,” Arum said. “But he’s gonna fight this summer. He’s gonna take two weeks off and get back in the ring [to train]. I mean, the idea that you get a talent like Crawford or [Vasyl] Lomachenko, and you have him fight once or twice a year, is a crime. … Oscar De La Hoya, when he was coming into real prominence, he was fighting five times a year. You know, [on] HBO, he was fighting [on] pay-per-view. He was fighting all the time. That’s what you’ve gotta do.”

Crawford has made 11 appearances either on HBO or HBO Pay-Per-View over the past four years.

Arum argued during a pre-fight press conference Thursday at Madison Square Garden that it’s not necessary to thank HBO for airing boxing. The Hall-of-Fame promoter noted that NBA players don’t thank networks during interviews for televising their games.

Crawford contended later in that press conference that it is indeed necessary to express his gratitude to the network for airing his fights because it isn’t required to do so.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.