Spence: Arum Is Doing Crawford Dirty; Promotes Lomachenko More
By Keith Idec
LAS VEGAS – Errol Spence Jr. couldn’t help himself.
The unbeaten IBF welterweight champion chastised promoter Bob Arum once Spence learned that the Terence Crawford-Amir Khan fight likely drew less than half the pay-per-view buys as his win against Mikey Garcia produced last month. A satisfied Spence smiled as he discussed that situation with BoxingScene.com on Friday following a weigh-in for the Robert Easter Jr.-Rances Barthelemy fight Saturday night at The Cosmopolitan.
“His promoter needs to do a better job promoting him, I guess,” Spence said, referring to Crawford. “I feel like he was a failure on the promotional side, so I think Bob needs to get back to the drawing board if he thinks me and Crawford’s gonna be a 50-50, down-the-middle deal. If I’m bringing in probably over 400,000 pay-per-view buys and he’s doing a hundred and something, why should we split it if we fight each other?”
Neither FOX, which distributed the Spence-Garcia fight March 16 from AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, nor ESPN, the distributor of Crawford-Khan a week ago from Madison Square Garden, have officially announced buy rates for those fights.
Spence (25-0, 21 KOs) and Garcia (39-1, 30 KOs) reportedly drew between 350,000 and 400,000 buys. Multiple sources have indicated to BoxingScene.com that Crawford-Khan produced less than half the buys Spence-Garcia generated.
Crawford (36-0, 25 KOs) was a heavy favorite over Khan (33-5, 20 KOs), who declined to continue during the sixth round, once Crawford hit him with what was ruled an unintentional low blow. According to Spence, a diminished Khan wasn’t the only obstacle that made Crawford’s second pay-per-view fight a difficult sell.
“It’s not just the opponents he’s fighting, but the whole promotional thing behind him,” Spence said. “Like when Showtime promotes and FOX promotes, they really put everything into it. With the Crawford fight, you really didn’t hear nothing until the week of the fight. I kind of forgot about it. I didn’t hear nothing about it until the week of the fight. They started promoting it probably Thursday or Friday. That’s when it really got out there like that. So, I feel like they could’ve done a better job of promoting it.”
Crawford-Khan did receive a sustained promotional push on all of ESPN’s linear and digital platforms. Spence still feels Arum should spend more time promoting the three-division champion than Top Rank’s other elite-level star, Vasiliy Lomachenko.
The 31-year-old Crawford, of Omaha, Nebraska, and the 31-year-old Lomachenko (13-1, 10 KOs) are generally regarded as two of the top three boxers, pound-for-pound, in the sport.
“With Crawford, it’s a lack of promotion,” Spence said. “I feel like Bob doesn’t promote Crawford like he should. I don’t know what that’s about, but I feel like he promotes Lomachenko way better than they promote Crawford. Even with the lead-up to the promotion of the Crawford fight, they were talking about Lomachenko in the same sentence with Crawford. Why are you talking about Lomachenko, when you’ve got your pay-per-view fighter fighting Saturday night? Every time they mentioned Crawford, they mentioned Lomachenko. What are you doing that for, when you’ve got Crawford fighting?
“When I fought on pay-per-view, they didn’t mention guys. They didn’t mention Keith Thurman, they didn’t mention Pacquiao. They mentioned me. They mentioned me versus Garcia, not, ‘Keith Thurman, Keith Thurman, Keith Thurman, Keith Thurman.’ Or, ‘Pacquiao, Pacquiao, Pacquiao, Pacquiao.’ If somebody mentioned Pacquiao and Keith Thurman, it was me who mentioned them, who I would like to fight next. I feel like the proof is in the pudding, how they handled the whole promotion. Me, I wasn’t even watching like that, and I noticed how they were handling the promotion, keep bringing up Lomachenko. Even after Crawford’s fight, they kept bringing up Lomachenko. Why? They’re not even in the same
Spence: Arum Is Doing Crawford Dirty; Promotes Lomachenko More
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