Jeff Horn vs. Terence Crawford rescheduled for June 9 in Las Vegas, NV

Boxingnews24.com

By Chris Williams

Jeff Horn vs. Terence Crawford will likely be rescheduled for June 9 on ESPN at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. ESPN is reporting that is the expected rearranged date for Horn (18-0-1, 12 KOs) to defend his WBO welterweight title against Crawford (32-0, 23 KOs) in a Top Rank promoted card in Vegas.

This Horn-Crawford fight might not bring in good ratings, as the boxing public has been extremely cool to the idea of watching Crawford and Horn fight. It’s not a good match-up. Some fights just don’t interest fans, and this is one of them. We could hear crickets chirping in the audience on June 9 at the Crawford-Horn fight at the MGM Grand.

If I was Crawford, I would let Top Rank know that I want to fight Errol Spence and Keith Thurman. Having Crawford wasting valuable time facing Horn is not going to take his career anywhere.

Crawford, 30, and Horn were supposed to be fighting each other next month on April 14 on ESPN, but the Nebraska naïve Crawford suffered a hand injury and couldn’t make that date. Having the Horn-Crawford fight moved off that date has hurt the card, as the co-feature bout between WBO super bantamweight champion Jessie Magdaleno vs. Isaac Dogboe has moved to April 28 on ESPN. That fight is now headlining that date. Horn vs. Crawford has nothing interesting to appeal to the boxing masses to get them to want to watch the card other than their fight, which is shapes up to be a mismatch.

Originally, Top Rank had hoped to make the Crawford-Horn fight card a pay-per-view broadcast on ESPN. They were going to have former pay-per-view star Manny Pacquiao fighting on the undercard against Mike Alvarado. When Pacquiao chose not to accept the undercard spot against Alvarado, it hurt the card.

Without quality fights on the undercard of the Crawford vs. Horn broadcast, there’s not much to interest the boxing fans. Crawford isn’t a star. He’s a good fighter, but he’s not a star outside of his home state of Nebraska. Horn is an Australian and he’s not known in the U.S with casual boxing fans. The hardcore fans remember Horn for being the guy that roughed up Pacquiao for 12 rounds and won a controversial decision last July.

READ Terence Crawford injured, Jeff Horn fight postponed until May 19 or June

Horn didn’t win a lot of boxing fans in the U.S with his performance against Pacquiao. Top Rank would have been better off having Crawford work his way to a title shot against one of the other welterweight champions like WBA/WBC champ Keith Thurman or IBF champion Errol Spence Jr. rather than facing Horn. That seems like a wrong-headed move by Top Rank to waste Crawford’s time fighting an obscure fighter like Horn, especially with the controversy that took place last July in his foul-filled win over Pacquiao.

Top Rank co-promotes Horn, so it’s not surprising that they’re making this in house fight between him and Crawford. Still, Top Rank could have left Horn as the WBO champion, and had Crawford go after Thurman or Spence. That way Top Rank would potentially have two world champions at 147 if Crawford were to beat Thurman or Spence. A move like that would make a lot more sense than having Crawford chew up the paper champion Horn in a Top Rank in house fight.

Hopefully, Crawford doesn’t end up getting struck defending the WBO welterweight title against the likes of Konstantin Ponomarev and other little known fighters in the Top Rank stable.