Terence Crawford denies using Canelo Alvarez’s name to help sell his fight against Israil Madrimov on PPV last Saturday at the BMO Stadium in Los Angeles.
Canelo feels that his name was used to artificially create interest in the Crawford-Madrimov fight by giving a false impression that the winner would have a chance to fight him next. Unified super middleweight champion Canelo never said he wanted to fight Crawford or Madrimov.
Regardless, Canelo’s name was mentioned frequently during the Crawford vs. Madrimov event promotion, and apparently, it didn’t help.
Journalist Kevin Iole says his sources state that last Saturday’s Crawford-Madrimov event lost over $10 million and that “scores” of tickets were given away. It didn’t help. The BMO Stadium was still not full. This suggests that Crawford can’t draw, and he’s not a good option for Canelo.
“We didn’t use Canelo’s name to promote anything,” said Terence Crawford to Sean Zittel, denying that he used Canelo Alvarez’s name to help promote his fight against Israil Madrimov last Saturday night on DAZN and ESPN+ PPV.
“It’s disrespectful to me because we didn’t have to use Canelo’s name to promote nothing. Anytime they [the media] ever gave me questions about Canelo, I shut it down, and I’m pretty sure he shut it down. I’m focused on Berlanga. That’s what he’s going to say.”
It’s not disrespectful for Canelo to point out that his name was frequently used during the promotion of the Crawford-Madrimov event because it was. Even promoter Eddie Hearn admitted that Canelo’s name was used to get fans interested in the event.
“Anytime, I don’t want to talk about Canelo. I don’t want to speak about Canelo. I’m worried about one person. So, for him to say that we had to use his name to sell the fight is disrespect,” said Crawford
Instead of Crawford getting upset about it, he should be happy because Canelo’s name being floated during the promotion may have brought in a few more PPV buys than it otherwise would.
