Terence Crawford and Shawn Porter have been linked to a future fight for years, but with Crawford tied to Top Rank and Porter with PBC, no serious steam has been built for the pair to showdown.

To complicate matters a bit more, Crawford and Porter are close and consider each other friends.

Porter has said in the past that if a clash were to take place, it would be a decision they have to co-sign, not the powers that be.

If you ask the WBO welterweight champion Crawford (36-0, 27 KOs), the Nebraska native appears to be game for a meeting in the middle of the ring.

“That’s a good fight,” Crawford told ESPN. “If that’s a fight that [Porter] wants to pursue, we can talk about it, and so be it. I don’t duck no fighter. I never turned down no fighter, so I won’t stop now. My whole thing was I’m looking for the titles, and I’m trying to become undisputed. Me and Shawn are good friends.”

The 32-year-old Crawford is irked that Porter (30-3-1, 17 KOs) never came calling when the Las Vegas-based, Ohio native was the WBC welterweight champion before dropping a close and competitive split decision to division adversary Errol Spence Jr.

“My whole thing was before he lost to Errol Spence, there was no mention of, ‘Let’s have a unification fight’ or no nothing. So I feel some type of way about that,” said Crawford. “It don’t matter. We all got to fight each other. I want to fight everybody.”

Top Rank boss Bob Arum has listed Porter among the five opponents of which he’s closely considering for the three-division champion Crawford’s next fight, which is set to take place by November. The others are Manny Pacquiao, Kell Brook, Keith Thurman and Yordenis Ugas.

If Crawford were to fight the pitbull-like Porter, it certainly would be a step-up in competition.

“Our friendship is really tight. I admire him as a fighter, and I’ve gotten that back in return,” Porter previously told BoxingScene.com.

Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist and member of the Boxing Writers Assn. of America since 2011. He has written for the likes of the LA Times, Guardian, USA Today, Philadelphia Inquirer, Men’s Health and NFL.com. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan or via email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com.