Bud has been the WBO welterweight champion since 2018. Since that time he’s been able to get easy mandatory fights and fight an average of once per year. Why?
Well, we know Arum has major pull with the WBO going back to Pacquiao. A fight would be rumored then suddenly they would be made a contender according to the WBO.
Towards the end of Bud’s time with Arum he had no problem saying he’s losing money on the guy. A recent Yahoo report said Arum, Top Rank, and ESPN have lost over $20 million since 2018 on Crawford. The final straw was the Porter mandatory. I have no doubts if Arum wanted to he could have gotten around it and had the WBO not force a mandatory or a purse bid for Shawn. But Arum was done losing money on Bud and knew he wasn’t resigning anyway so he had no reason to protect him.
Now that he’s essentially a free agent he has no pull with any org and is realizing he has no clear path to get the fights he may want now since he’s not a money fighter. Only way he gets in line for a Spence fight is to bend the knee to Haymon and probably have to take a tougher fight first while Spence/Ugas plays out.
He had no problems while Arum was paying him more than he was worth all those years but now that reality is setting he’s seeing his actual position in the game.
This whole lawsuit against Arum is just him deflecting blame for his lack of ambition all these years.
Well, we know Arum has major pull with the WBO going back to Pacquiao. A fight would be rumored then suddenly they would be made a contender according to the WBO.
Towards the end of Bud’s time with Arum he had no problem saying he’s losing money on the guy. A recent Yahoo report said Arum, Top Rank, and ESPN have lost over $20 million since 2018 on Crawford. The final straw was the Porter mandatory. I have no doubts if Arum wanted to he could have gotten around it and had the WBO not force a mandatory or a purse bid for Shawn. But Arum was done losing money on Bud and knew he wasn’t resigning anyway so he had no reason to protect him.
Now that he’s essentially a free agent he has no pull with any org and is realizing he has no clear path to get the fights he may want now since he’s not a money fighter. Only way he gets in line for a Spence fight is to bend the knee to Haymon and probably have to take a tougher fight first while Spence/Ugas plays out.
He had no problems while Arum was paying him more than he was worth all those years but now that reality is setting he’s seeing his actual position in the game.
This whole lawsuit against Arum is just him deflecting blame for his lack of ambition all these years.
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