The Manny Pacquiao vs. Keith Thurman hype is real and it's drawing a lot of strong opinions from fans and boxing professionals alike. Among them is Terence Crawford, who says that he wants WBA Super World welterweight champ Keith Thurman to beat Manny Pacquiao in their upcoming fight on July 20, and proceeds to say that he wants Thurman to move on to bigger fights.
Crawford didn't exactly specify which fights he wants Thruman to take should he beat the Filipino champ, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that he wants Thurman to fight him next. Unfortunately for Crawford, that may never happen. Even Errol Spence J. can't get Thurman to fight him, which he has been trying for the last three years.
"I've been knowing Keith Thurman since the amateur days. I wish him nothing but the best," Crawford told FightHype. "I hope he goes out there to do his thing and take care of Pacquiao, get the victory, and move on with his career to bigger and better things."
It's safe to assume Crawford isn't a huge fan of Pacquiao and he never attempted to fight him when the two were actually both signed with Top Rank. Although, Crawford did want to fight Pacquiao, but the match never happened.
We never heard Pacquiao say anything about a potential fight with Crawford, but it was Bob Arum who "killed" the match. The Filipino fighter has got some influence over the promoter one way or another, but it's apparently not enough to convince Top Rank to make that fight happen.
While the fight not happening has in no way affected Pacquiao's career, it's certainly unfortunate for Crawford, as the fight would have taken his career to the next level, that is if he beat Pacquiao. Crawford might be a pay-per-view star at this point in his career if he'd beaten Pacquiao years ago.
Crawford recently fought Amir Khan on April 20, which was his second PPV match. But rumors say that the fight only dre 100,000 buys on ESPN. This is a bump up from the 50,000 buys Crawford's first PPV effort against Viktor Postol is rumored to have brought in back in 2016.
These numbers are still pretty low. In the end, we all know that Crawford needs a huge win, and fast. Some good news for him, a fight against IBF welterweight champ Kell Brook is in the pipeline in September. Let's see what happens next.