By Keith Idec
Terence Crawford watched in shock Saturday night as his biggest potential payday all but went away.
Before unknown Australian underdog Jeff Horn upset Manny Pacquiao in Brisbane, the undefeated Crawford at least held out hope that he would finally fight Pacquiao either later this year or early in 2018. That possibility became a lot less likely when Michael Buffer announced Horn had won his fight against Pacquiao on all three scorecards at Suncorp Stadium (117-111, 115-113, 115-113).
Crawford expressed his disappointment on Twitter following Pacquiao’s dubious defeat in Horn’s hometown.
An agitated Crawford Tweeted: Smh sh*ts crazy they wouldn’t let me fight him but let him go over there and [lose] smmfh
By they, Crawford referred to Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc., the company that promotes him and Pacquiao (59-7-2, 38 KOs). Despite public pressure to make a Pacquiao-Crawford fight that had been discussed for well over a year, Arum arranged for the 38-year-old Pacquiao to travel to Horn’s hometown for what was supposed to be a relatively easy bout for the Filipino legend.
Crawford instead defeated the Dominican Republic’s Felix Diaz (19-1, 9 KOs) by technical knockout May 20 at Madison Square Garden in New York. The 29-year-old Crawford (31-0, 22 KOs), the WBC/WBO super lightweight champion, has since agreed to a full title unification fight against IBF/IBO/WBA 140-pound champion Julius Indongo (22-0, 11 KOs) next month.
Crawford, of Omaha, Nebraska, and Namibia’s Indongo are scheduled to meet August 19 in Lincoln, Nebraska, about a one-hour drive from Omaha. ESPN, which aired Pacquiao’s loss to Horn (17-0-1, 11 KOs) in the United States, also will televise the scheduled 12-round bout between Crawford and Indongo as a main event from Pinnacle Bank Arena.
Though Crawford was hopeful that he eventually would land the sizeable seven-figure purse that would’ve accompanied challenging Pacquiao, he expressed prior to defeating Diaz that he knew it might not happen.
“Anything’s possible,” Crawford said before a press conference early in April at Madison Square Garden. “It’s just that I’m not focused on that. If it happens, it happens. If it don’t, it don’t. I’m still young in my career. I’ve still got a lot left in me, and he’s on the downside of his career. And if it don’t happen, so be it.
“Pacquiao earned that right to go out however he wanna go out. He done fought everybody there is to fight and took on all the big and baddest challenges there was. So I credit him and his career. He had an amazing career, and if he decides to go out with whoever he wanna go out with, he earned that right.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.