Terence Crawford: Superstar Or Star

Saturday night at Madison Square Garden junior welterweight champion Terence Crawford (30-0, 21 KO's) will defend his title against challenger Felix Diaz (19-1, 9 KO's). Crawford is widely considered as one of the best P4P fighters in the world right now. His fights are usually exciting to watch, and he has rallied up four knockouts in his last five outings. Three years ago he travelled over to the UK to take Ricky Burns' title. It was a risk that most fighters don't take these days. Then he went on to defeat, in very exciting fashion mind you, a big name in Yuriorkis Gamboa. Crawford fought three times in 2014, twice in 2015, and three times in 2016. He has fought in Nebraska, Texas, NYC, and Las Vegas.

Despite everything listed about Terence Crawford has yet to make any sort of presence outside of regular boxing fans. Unlike guys like Saul Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin, who have made their presence known not just among boxing fans but to casual fans as well, Crawford is having a hard time getting noticed. In other incidents like this names like Guillermo Rigondeaux and Andre Ward come to mind. However Crawford is different. He has a great promoter behind him and his fights are actually exciting to watch. Where as Ward and Rigondeaux have been hammered for being extremely boring, Crawford isn't. He gets knockouts too. So what is the problem with Terence Crawford?

One thing that comes to mind is personality. Crawford wants to sign the fight, fight, and go home. He doesn't seem to care for the spotlight much nor does he like speaking to the media. His interviews are usually pretty boring. The charisma that surround guys like Mayweather, Pacquiao, Canelo, and Golovkin is just not there.

Another thing that has hindered Crawford's ability to excel into the superstar spotlight is his division. In his last seven fights only two of them have posed even some sort of a threat to him. Viktor Postol and Gamboa. We live in an era where boxing fans want the biggest fights right away. In three years Crawford has only had two opponents than anyone even cared to see him watch and one of them (Postol) was put on a bogus PPV that not even 50,000 people watched. In order to get noticed and to create buzz one has to win big fights. Big tough fights. For Crawford, all of those fights lie at 147, a weight division above him. That division is filled with talented fighters that Crawford could try to beat and create a buzz around his name. Beating guys like Ray Beltran, Dierry Jean, Thomas Dulmore, and Hank Lundy isn't going to excel a career.

In order for Crawford to be a PPV Superstar that some people out there think he can be a lot his going to have to change. He's going to have to move up a division where all the other players are. He's also going to have to be more friendly to the media. As in the case of Gennady Golvokin, the media can cause major buzz around a fighter. There is a chance that Crawford never becomes a Superstar. That's not a terrible thing. Golovkin isn't even there yet and the people have been buzzing about him for two years. If however, he desires to be a PPV star he's going to have to make himself one. Being talented and getting knockouts is only part of being a superstar. These days we seem to be seeing that now more than ever.