Comments Thread For: Arum on Spence-Crawford: I Don't Know How It Gets Done Without Somebody Wanting To Subsidize That Fight

[The Big Dunn]

It gets done when Crawford is sitting on ice and inactivity long enough to give Spence an edge. They aren't making the same mistake they made with Wilder/Fury which shows anyone with high common sense that Crawford never had to leave Top Rank to make the fight if they could make Wilder Fury x 3. Goes from a best guarantee in the division and 2 guaranteed fights per year - waiting for Spence vs Thurman (he was moved over Ortiz and Ennis for a reason by the WBC) and more inactivity. Show me where Crawford has his next opponent lined up without a promoter now. Just ******.

This is utterly ridiculous. You post as if you dont know Arum over paid Crawford as a free agent solely to block the fight.

Even if you play imbecile and pretend you forgot, we have Arum suggesting selling the fight cheaply when he never made this suggestion when Crawford was with TR in order to get the fight done.

He then started complaining about all the money he lost on Crawford- money he wouldn’t have lost if he didn’t overpay just to block the fight.

Stop the BS. Arum blocked this fight. Stop blaming just those you don’t like.

[The Big Dunn]

Just make the damn fight. I'm positive it'll do better than Canelo-Bivol.

*On a side note, I had a dream just last night that during the fight Crawford clipped Errol in the 4th round and put him on his ass. Errol beat the 8 count and Crawford came in reckless like he normally does when he feels he has his opponent hurt and ate a counter left that took him to his hands and knees. Bud got up staggering to the corner as the ref counted, then some outsider jumped in the ring and attacked Spence. Chaos ensued.

It was weird. Dream ended shortly after that. Thought I'd share.

Never tell the internet you dreamed about 2 men.

[SteveM]

Just make the damn fight. I'm positive it'll do better than Canelo-Bivol.

*On a side note, I had a dream just last night that during the fight Crawford clipped Errol in the 4th round and put him on his ass. Errol beat the 8 count and Crawford came in reckless like he normally does when he feels he has his opponent hurt and ate a counter left that took him to his hands and knees. Bud got up staggering to the corner as the ref counted, then some outsider jumped in the ring and attacked Spence. Chaos ensued.

It was weird. Dream ended shortly after that. Thought I'd share.

That PPV material right there!!!!!

[jwsmith]

May need to have it at the Cowboys stadium. Spence would have the home field advantage literally, but Crawford would be more in line to get a better split, and this should bring in more from the gate.

[tokon]

Bud earned over $20m in three years with Arum and is now suing him for being racist and loss of earnings .Buds a good fighter, just how good I don't think we'll find out .It doesn't help promotions either when Bud just sits there smiling and mumbling.I hope this long over due fight by this greedy pair gets made but my impression is neither seems that bothered.

Yes, and this is where the fight falls apart.
Spence is PBC 's guy with three titles and a better ppv record than Crawford.
Crawford has no promoter, doesn't seem like anyone even tried to sign him - probably due to guarantee that No Pay Cut wants. - they all know he's a lossmaker.
Is it realistic to expect haymon to gamble on Crawford unless Crawford is prepared to take a big cut on his guarantee and gamble on himself?

[Nightfall]

This is the same guy who refused to make DLH-Mayweather because he said Mayweather isn’t a big enough draw to generate the guarantee he was asking for ($20mm). Mayweather left him and went on to break records, even making more than what he asked Arum for. Missing out on supporting the biggest boxing superstar in PPV history.

For a guy who has been around boxing for decades as a promoter for some of the biggest names in boxing, Arum sometimes comes off as someone who knows nothing about big fights.

yea like his marinate program that caused a lot of big fights from happening by way of somebody taking a loss or fighters leaving.

[-Kev-]

If the people at the top of the sport are willing to pay Canelo his extravagant purses, for fights that draw 500-700K buys, no reason Bud and Spence can't get guarantees of about 15M. I'm tired of hearing "the money isn't there," for this fight...get it done. Gate revenue + sponsors + ppv = enough money for everybody to be happy. Maybe showtime and PBC should stop trying to rob the fighters, while looking at this fight as the one to build their respective budgets.

While I think Spence-Crawford could generate enough money to cover their guarantees, they can’t be compared to Canelo.

Networks are willing to risk a loss for big superstars. That’s not news. It was done for Mayweather more than once.

Mayweather was guaranteed $32mm for Berto, which sold
550k PPV’s, with thousands of tickets going unsold.

But Mayweather got that guarantee by having 6 of the highest selling PPV’s in the top 10. Including taking over the first 4 spots. He also has 5 of the top 10 highest selling gate revenues in boxing, including having the first 2 spots (3 and 4 are Canelo).

Canelo got that guarantee by being the biggest selling active boxer. Canelo has spots 3, 4, and 5 in the top 10 biggest gate revenues of all time. He co-starred in the 3rd best selling PPV of all time and Canelo’s version of a PPV “failure” (300-350k vs Angulo, L. Smith and Lara) is as good as Spence has ever done, and twice as good as Crawford has ever done.

Canelo’s PPV buys versus:

Mayweather - 2.2mm
GGG - 1.3mm
GGG - 1.1mm
Chavez Jr - 1mm
Cotto - 900k
Saunders - 800k
Plant - 800k
Khan - 600k
Angulo - 350k
Lara - 300k
L. Smith - 300k

That’s why Canelo was able to demand a high guarantee for fighting a virtually unknown fighter to Americans in Bivol.

It’s just like a regular person getting a great salary based on their resume. Even if they end up doing a terrible job at it, they didn’t get that salary offer based on how incompetent they were going to be in the job. They got the salary based on how well they have done in the job before. Except you can fire that person for that after giving him a few weeks of fcking up. In boxing, you sign a contract for one night’s worth of work and if you fck up, it doesn’t matter, you still get paid the salary you were guaranteed. All your “employer” had was one night to see you fcked up, and by then it’s too late.

Unlike Canelo; Spence and Crawford don’t have the track record of possibly doing great numbers. Crawford especially, has done awful numbers. In fact the only common opponent any of them have is Amir Khan, and in that one Canelo
outsold Crawford by 10s of millions of dollars. Completely
different revenue reputation there.

[rckdees]

The old greedy ba$tard has spent last 30 years promoting his in house fights where he got all the money so when this cretin says it won’t make money he’s looking at it from his old greedy pockets

[Southpaw16]

Crawford needs it for his legacy, Spence Jr needs it because it’s the only way to delay the Boots mandatory. The fight will happen.

[GhostofDempsey]

It depends on how much each fighter wants as a guarantee. They have to be realistic here, otherwise one or both of them is pricing themselves out of the fight. I think this fight would be big enough that each of them can earn upwards of $10 million each or close. Beyond that, I don't think either of them has the selling power or name recognition to make it much bigger to attract the casual fanbase. Especially in the middle of a recession.