WBO welterweight world champion Terence "Bud" Crawford is rejecting the talk of being on the "wrong side of the street" when it comes to securing fights with boxers who compete under the Premier Boxing Champions banner.
Crawford returns on Saturday night against mandatory challenger Egidijus "Mean Machine" Kavaliauskas (21-0-1, 17 KOs) at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The fight will be handled by ESPN.
Crawford (35-0, 26 KOs) wants to secure fights with the biggest names in his division, but he's having some problems.
Most of the known names are competing with PBC, who have content deals with Showtime and Fox Sports. Crawford is with Top Rank, who have an exclusive deal with ESPN.
Among the welterweight names in the PBC stable are WBC, IBF welterweight champ Errol Spence, WBC welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao, former unified champion Keith Thurman, former two division champion Danny Garcia, former world champion Shawn Porter, Yordenis Ugas, Sergey Lipinets, and several others.
ESPN and PBC are expected to come together to stage a joint pay-per-view event between Deontay Wilder (under PBC) and Tyson Fury (under ESPN) - so Crawford sees no reason as to why certain fight can't be made for him with the PBC welterweights.
"Well, Deontay Wilder is about to fight Tyson Fury and you never hear about any 'sides of the street.' It's just something people say when it comes to Terence Crawford. You don't hear 'wrong side of the street' with any other fighter but Terence Crawford. Why do all these other fights get made, but when it's Terence Crawford, it's about the 'wrong side of the street?,'" Crawford said.
