Boxing analyst Paulie Malignaggi thinks that two sanctioning bodies are hurting interest in the sport by allowing Terence Crawford to hold onto his welterweight titles when he has no intention of ever returning to the 147-lb division to defend them.
The WBA and WBO have allowed Crawford to sit on his welterweight titles since his last fight against Errol Spence on July 29, 2023. Crawford is scheduled to challenge WBA junior middleweight champion Israil Madrimov for his belt in 16 days on August 3rd.
If the WBA and WBO had stripped Crawford once he’d made it clear he was moving up to 154, the welterweight division would have been more interested because two champions would be holding titles with those sanctioning bodies by now.
You can argue that Crawford is selfish by choosing not to vacate his last two welterweight belts because he realizes he’s not returning to the division. He’s made it clear that he wants to win titles at 154 and move up to 168 to challenge Canelo Alvarez for his four belts at super middleweight.
The only explanation for Crawford keeping his WBA and WBO welterweight titles is for negotiation purposes or to increase his popularity, as his name is shown holding a belt before he captures another one.
As old and inactive as Crawford is, he might never win another world title unless he returns to 147 and stays away from Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis. His chances of beating Madrimov at 154 are iffy, and he certainly isn’t going to beat Canelo at 168, especially if he takes another year off after his fight on August 3rd.
“I can’t say he would be the best of the bunch if he was in the era of Spence and Crawford when they technically could have still fought him,” said boxing analyst Paulie Malignaggi to Probox TV about where Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis would place among the fighters from a past era.
Boots Ennis would be too good for fighters from Crawford’s era at 147, from 2018 to 2023. The best guys from the past era were these fighters:
– Shawn Porter
– Kell Brook
– Keith Thurman
– Danny Garcia
– Terence Crawford
– Manny Pacquiao
– Amir Khan
“The guys from the previous generation, like Porter and Pacquiao, he [Boots Ennis] would certainly be in that mix. I don’t know if he would be on a Wheaties Box, but he would certainly be a much more known entity within boxing. He’d be knocking some of those guys off, and maybe some of them would be beating him.
Boots Ennis beats all those guys. Kell Brook had never beaten anyone before his win over Porter, which was a questionable one, and then he was wrecked by Gennadiy Golovkin in 2016.
Porter was never more than a gatekeeper, whose best win came against a shot Adrien Broner.
Pacquiao had been on the downside of his career since 2012 and wouldn’t have been a problem for Boots Ennis. Danny Garcia never belonged at 147, and was at his best at 140.
“He’d still be among the best welterweights of the generation,” Malignaggi continued about Ennis. “He’s still going to be, but not as shiny of a prize at the moment or anymore, at least right now, because the welterweight division doesn’t have as much luster right now.”
The welterweight is empty now, and there’s nothing shiny about it. That’s why it’s silly for Boots Ennis to insist on staying in the weight class with his goal of becoming the undisputed champion.
That makes him seem like he lacks the confidence to go up to 154 to fight the more talented fighters. There’s no other way of looking at it than to view it as a signal that Boots Ennis lacks self-belief to go up to 154 to chase Crawford and fight against Spence, Sebastian Fundora, Tim Tszyu, and other notable fighters.
“A lot of guys have exited, some guys have retired, some have moved up, and it doesn’t help that two of the sanctioning bodies [WBA and WBO] because you don’t allow the wheel to turn,” said Malignaggi. “If guys are picking up world titles, then you create a demand for this guy to fight that guy. I want to see that guy fight this guy.”
It’s terrible that Crawford can hold onto his WBA and WBO welterweight titles without being stripped. He should have been stripped because it’s been 12 months since he captured the WBA belt, and he hasn’t defended it. There hasn’t been any activity with the WBO belt for a year that Crawford captured in 2018 against Jeff Horn.
“The TV starts making the fight, and you start creating a demand. Doing stuff like the sanctioning bodies do where they don’t strip guys and keep the wheel turning; you also kill the interest because you got a guy [Crawford] that is holding two of the four welterweight titles, who is never going to fight at welterweight again. So what are we doing here?” said Malignaggi.
Crawford is killing the interest of the welterweight division by not doing the right thing by vacating his last two remaining titles. If Crawford loses to Madrimov, he still likely won’t return to welterweight because His Excellency will probably still give him the Canelo fight anyway.
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