Floyd Mayweather vs Terence Crawford?
On November 21, 2019 Floyd Mayweather unsurprisingly announced he was ending his boxing retirement via Instagram. Mayweather has unretired multiple times during his career. Most recently, he came out of retirement to fight against Conor Mcgregor for an exciting press conference of debauchery and cringe. As most boxing observers predicted Floyd Mayweather won by technical knockout and more importantly earning an estimate of $250-$300 million. After the fight Floyd Mayweather said, “This was my last fight tonight. For sure.” As a die-hard boxing fan myself, I personally believed Floyd Mayweather was retired from official boxing competition after the Conor Mcgregor match. Considering Mayweather is in his 40s and his net worth is $560 million. Mayweather fought against undefeated kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa in a forgetful boxing exhibition. After Mayweather’s match against Nasukawa, I thought he would still be retired from boxing competition.
A few weeks after Mayweather announced his return to boxing via Instagram, Terence Crawford fought against Egidijus Kavaliauskas for the WBO Welterweight title. An exciting fight ended in Crawford winning by technical knockout in the ninth round. As the fight ended, I immediatly thought about the big boxing names Crawford could potentially fight against, such as Danny Garcia, Errol Spence, and Manny Pacquiao. I realized the biggest name Terence Crawford could fight next was Floyd Mayweather. For Floyd Mayweather, Terence Crawford is not a household name. Crawford-Kavaliauskas fight attracted on average 1.35 million views on ESPN and most recently Crawford-Khan had an estimate of 150,000 pay-per-view buys. Financially, Mayweather has better opponents to choose from. Rumors are Mayweather is vying for rematches against Manny Pacquiao and Conor Mcgregor. Besides the financial incentive on paper Crawford is the worthiest opponent for Mayweather. Crawford has a perfect undefeated record of 36–0 and Crawford has won world boxing titles in 3 different weight classes. Meanwhile, Mayweather has a perfect record of 50–0 and has won world boxing titles in five different weight classes. On paper, Crawford is closing the gap on Mayweather in terms of boxing records. Stylistically, Mayweather and Crawford (both being counter-punchers) creates a mystery of how the Crawford-Mayweather fight would play out.
It’s a longshot for a Crawford-Mayweather match to occur. The only hope I have for this match to occur is the timing. Both boxers have buzz from their last professional match. With the right marketing the Mayweather-Crawford match would create buzz for multiple story lines. Can Mayweather still win against the top boxers in the world? Is Crawford the top boxer of his generation? Will the Mayweather-Crawford fight determine who is the best Welterweight of all time? I predict casual boxing fans will be interested in this match-up, since both boxers are undefeated and Crawford has an exciting fighting style to entice the boxing casuals to buy the PPV. Crawford has won by knockout/technical knockout in his last 5 boxing matches. Ultimately, it’s up to Mayweather if he will fight against Crawford. Floyd Mayweather, I am personally asking, please fight against Terence Crawford.
