A Hall of Fame great has sent a stern message out to Terence Crawford in light of the American’s recent comments on social media.
The 38-year-old from Nebraska entered the boxing history books once again back in September when he comprehensively defeated Mexican icon Canelo Alvarez to capture the undisputed super-middleweight championship.
Crawford has now cemented his status as arguably the greatest fighter of his generation by becoming the first male fighter in boxing history to win an undisputed championship in three weight classes, a feat he has already achieved at super-lightweight and welterweight.
‘Bud’ is no longer the undisputed world champion at 168lbs however after he was stripped of his WBC title for failing to pay the required sanctioning fees.
Legendary fighter-turned-promoter Oscar De La Hoya has now spoken out and shared his thoughts on the comments that Crawford has recently made on social media, as he questions the behaviour of the unbeaten American.
“Terence Crawford, he told the WBC to basically go f**k themselves yesterday and is refusing to pay sanctioning fees to him for his $50 million fight against Canelo. $50 million! Do he forget where he came from? Or how he got there? How do you think you rose to that level through the ranking system? You get positioned to make that kind of money.
“I mean come on, you’re 38-years-old, you’ve been paying sanctioning fees for a long time in the past. There’s nothing new here, there’s nothing groundbreaking, you had no problem when they were ranking you to fight Canelo. This is not the way champions behave, once you start making money you don’t behave this way. Young fighters shouldn’t be looking up to this.
“Any kid who becomes an amateur dreams of becoming a world champion and having a belt. The kid’s dream of becoming world champion like you did Terence, this is not the way to behave, look yes there is an agenda with TKO, yes they want to create one belt, one entity, to control the entire sport, but it’s sad that they made you the mouthpiece.
“You of all people. I thought you had integrity, I thought you had respect for boxing and the sport. So just because you made it Crawford, and you made $50 million you don’t want to pay that fee ever again? That is wrong. I’m very disappointed.”
It remains to be seen exactly what Crawford’s next move will be, although it has been suggested that the pound-for-pound star could drop down to middleweight as he bids to become a world champion in a sixth weight division.
