With a Monday negotiating deadline with four-division champion Terence Crawford arriving, Sebastian Fundora’s promoter is poised to submit a Premier Boxing Champions-backed bid to stage the bout within the 90-day window that the World Boxing Organization has ordered.
Sampson Lewkowicz, the promoter for WBO/WBC junior-middleweight champion Fundora (21-1-1, 13 KOs), said Crawford representatives have not reached out to him to negotiate the bout during this 30-day September window the WBO provided.
Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) turned 37 this week, and he’s expressed a near single-minded desire to next fight the sport’s most popular fighter, Mexico’s three-belt super-middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez, after needing to win the final two rounds on the scorecards Aug. 3 to emerge with a unanimous-decision victory over Israil Madrimov, taking his WBA 154-pound belt.
“He’s too big now,” Lewkowicz said of Crawford. “He has no chance to defeat Sebastian Fundora, who is in the gym now and who lives in the gym.”
While a WBO official said Crawford has the right to request a negotiating extension period by Monday’s deadline, Lewkowicz said the Crawford team’s unwillingness to communicate during this negotiation period is telling, meaning the WBO should force the fighter to confront the 10-day period to express whether he’s interested in fighting Fundora or not.
If Nebraska’s Crawford withdraws from the Fundora talks, it’s expected Southern California’s Fundora will turn to meet former three-belt welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. (28-1, 22 KOs), who appeared in the ring with Fundora following his March 30 two-belt victory over badly bloodied Tim Tszyu.
Lewkowicz isn’t interested in discussing the Spence possibility right now.
He wants an answer from Team Crawford.
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