During a video interview with talkSPORT, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum discusses his company’s plans for the upcoming year, Tyson Fury’s return, potential difficulties posed by the new COVID-19 variant, and towards the end also touches on the subject of Terence Crawford’s free agency after he’s completing his contract with the company. With Arum directly asked about whether or not he think he’ll work with Crawford going forward, Arum said:
“Well Terence Crawford, I think, is clearly one of the best fighters in the world today. He’s tremendously skilled. Unfortunately he hasn’t shown to be a fighter who’s been a draw on pay-per-view, for whatever reason.
“So we’ve put him in the best fights we can, unfortunately we’ve lost money on every fight that he’s done, and he keeps insisting — and I can understand his point of view — ‘I’m the best, I should get paid like the best,’ so if somebody is willing to come and put up the money that Crawford is demanding he should do a fight for some other promoter if he’s gonna make more money.
“We’re really at the limit of what we can pay him and maybe somebody will pay him more and will be able to make a profit, which obviously it’s a business, and so be it. I have never had an adverse reaction to a fighter who is a contractual free agent — which Terence is — who looks for a better opportunity and more money to fight for another promotional company. I think that’s fine. That’s totally legitimate, that’s business. That happens in all sports.
“What I don’t like in the sport is fighters who are under contract who go through legal machinations trying to break the contract. But Terence hasn’t done that. Terence has lived up to his contract with us, we’ve lived up to our contract with Terence, and if he can make more money from somebody else, some other company from what we’re willing to pay him, he should take it. He’d be a fool not to.”