Sebastian Fundora promoter ready for Terence Crawford purse bid
Sep 28, 2024 • 8:30 PM ET
With a Monday negotiating deadline with four-division champion Terence Crawford arriving, Sebastian Fundora’s promoter is poised to submit a Premier Boxing Champions-backed bid to stage the bout within the 90-day window that the World Boxing Organization has ordered.
Sampson Lewkowicz, the promoter for WBO/WBC junior-middleweight champion Fundora (21-1-1, 13 KOs), said Crawford representatives have not reached out to him to negotiate the bout during this 30-day September window the WBO provided.
Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) turned 37 this week, and he’s expressed a near single-minded desire to next fight the sport’s most popular fighter, Mexico’s three-belt super-middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez, after needing to win the final two rounds on the scorecards Aug. 3 to emerge with a unanimous-decision victory over Israil Madrimov, taking his WBA 154-pound belt.
“He’s too big now,” Lewkowicz said of Crawford. “He has no chance to defeat Sebastian Fundora, who is in the gym now and who lives in the gym.”
While a WBO official said Crawford has the right to request a negotiating extension period by Monday’s deadline, Lewkowicz said the Crawford team’s unwillingness to communicate during this negotiation period is telling, meaning the WBO should force the fighter to confront the 10-day period to express whether he’s interested in fighting Fundora or not.
If Nebraska’s Crawford withdraws from the Fundora talks, it’s expected Southern California’s Fundora will turn to meet former three-belt welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. (28-1, 22 KOs), who appeared in the ring with Fundora following his March 30 two-belt victory over badly bloodied Tim Tszyu.
Lewkowicz isn’t interested in discussing the Spence possibility right now.
He wants an answer from Team Crawford.
Lance Pugmire has been a full-time boxing writer for nearly 20 years, serving now as BoxingScene’s U.S. Senior Writer and assistant producer for ProBoxTV’s “BoxingScene Today.” Pugmire capped a near 20-year career at the Los Angeles Times (sports investigations, NHL/MLB beat work, law enforcement/courts and boxing/UFC) to join The Athletic, and then USA Today. Pugmire’s stint at The Times started with the first Israel Vazquez-Rafael Marquez fight and the Oscar De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather Jnr then-record pay-per-view, leading through a slew of ringside assignments at major bouts, including Mayweather-Pacquiao, Mayweather-Canelo and the Canelo-Golovkin trilogy. Lance’s appreciation for boxing is rooted in his admiration and appreciation for the fighters, gladiators who have proven to be the most forthcoming and candid of all the athletes he has interviewed over a career dating to 1990. Lance was honored to be named the 2022 winner of the Boxing Writers Association of America Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence and he’s collected many BWAA writing awards in categories ranging from breaking news to deep-dive long features.
