When stalled super fights get you down, you can always come here to Fight Hype, every Thursday, for a money shot of gooey, salty truth-induced tonic to ease your angst. This week, we have comments/questions regarding the unraveling of Spence-Crawford and Fury-Joshua.
Spence vs Crawford Breakdown
Hello Paul,
I hope everything is going fine your way. As you know, the rest of us boxing geeks are about to lose our minds over what seems to be a breakdown of the Spence vs. Crawford negotiations.
With that said, I’m going to start applying some words I’ve often seen you write in regards to fights being made. These aren’t your exact words but I’ll do my best to paraphrase them, “I don’t believe any rumors of fights being made until contracts have been signed.” - Paul Magno.
Anyhow, since the rumors are out, let’s take a moment to NOT TO BELIEVE them, but to talk about them.
The rumor is that Terence Crawford negotiated and verbally agreed to a 65/35 split. Now, Crawford is backing out of his verbal agreement because he has some new demands and wants to know the intricacies of where and how all the money will be generated. Paul, why didn’t Terence Crawford make those demands during the original negotiations?
To me, it seems that Terence Crawford never had any intent on signing the deal he verbally agreed to. If so, he would’ve made these recent demands during the original negotiation talks. Now that the verbal negotiations are over, he’s asking for a new set of demands and he’s doing it in an ugly and unprofessional manner by getting the media involved. It seems that his sole intent is to put a bad stain on Al Haymon/PBC and Errol Spence Jr.
If Terence was serious about negotiating new demands, he would’ve circled back to Al Haymon/PBC directly instead of creating this shit storm of misinformation. Now, he’s trying to trash the other side because he’s unsatisfied with what he originally negotiated.
We all know that Terence has signed bad deals with Top Rank twice, and now he’s suing Top Rank. And just a few weeks ago, he negotiated and verbally agreed to a deal with Al Haymon/PBC, and once again, Terence is blaming the other side.
Paul, when will Terence own up and be held accountable for his bad business dealings? And, do you really believe that he wants this fight with Errol Spence Jr.? Terence has ruined his business relationship with Top Rank, and now he’s on the verge of ruining his business relationship with PBC. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this fiasco. Thanks,
-- KB
Hey KB.
We have to preface everything by saying that nobody outside of the actual parties in direct negotiation know anything, for sure, about what’s going on. Anyone relying entirely on media reports and social media rumors should take everything they hear with a huge grain of salt.
From what I’ve heard, Crawford has opted for a full cut of revenue over a guaranteed purse (or that the revenue cut is substantially larger than the guarantee). So, the latest holdup is centered around Crawford’s effort to have full transparency in how much money will be coming in. That certainly makes sense and seems reasonable. What doesn’t make sense, though, is why this became an issue now, more than two weeks after it was reported that both sides had agreed to all “material terms?”
Could it be that the media member who first leaked the story simply jumped the gun and that Spence-Crawford was not yet out of the negotiations process? That seems like the most logical answer.
Then again, why the hell are these talks dragging on so long when they reportedly began months ago?
You make some good points in your email. I do think Crawford wants the Spence fight. I also think that he’s clearly a tough man to deal with when it comes to business matters. I get the pride he has in himself, his accomplishments and I get how he ties the deals he makes with the respect he feels he deserves. I wouldn’t expect the fierce competitor that he is to be any less fierce when it comes to getting the deal he wants. That’s why fighters have management to be pragmatic, diplomatic, and look at “big picture” matters. I don’t think Crawford really has that right now and I don’t think he wants it, either. He’s distrustful by nature, which is certainly not unreasonable when you work in the boxing business.
Just from an outsider’s point of view, Crawford’s got too much pride built into these negotiations. He needs to take a step back and realize that making the Spence fight is not the hill he wants to die on. If legacy matters and next-level stardom is his goal, he has to find a way to make this fight happen. He needs Spence more than Spence needs him. There is, almost literally, nothing for Crawford without first climbing over Spence.
Again, I’ll double back and say that we don’t REALLY know what’s been going on behind the scenes. But that doesn’t really matter in this particular case. He needs to make the Spence fight happen and he needs to swallow some pride to get it done.
Who’s to Blame for Dead Battle of Britain?
Hi Paul.
I don’t know what to make of the Tyson Fury-Anthony Joshua situation. Is Fury to blame for the fight falling apart? Is AJ to blame? Are both to blame? Did any one of the two even want the fight to happen? Help me make heads or tails of it.
– Simon
Hey Simon.
My take is that, honestly, neither side ever wanted it...not right now, anyway. Fury probably might’ve gone through with the fight against a vulnerable AJ had it been easy to put together on the initial date he wanted, but he had to know that there was no way in hell Team Joshua would sign off right now. From Joshua’s side, taking this fight would’ve practically been a career suicide mission. Barring a big, longshot KO punch out of the blue, a mentally vulnerable Joshua was destined to a defeat so soon after back-to-back frustrating losses and a post-fight meltdown in his last try at beating Oleksandr Usyk. It would be exceedingly difficult to sell Joshua as a big-timer after losing three big fights in a row and four of his last six. But Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn were pushed into responding to Fury’s call-out and they had to at least put on a public show of wanting to make this fight.
Fury-Joshua was never going to happen on December 3. It’ll probably happen eventually. There’s way too much money in the pairing for it not to happen. But it was never, ever going to happen this year. Everybody knew that (or should’ve known that).
Got a question (or hate mail) for Magno’s Bulging Mail Sack? The best of the best gets included in the weekly mailbag segment right here at FightHype. Send your stuff here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com.