LAS VEGAS (Sept. 6, 2018) – Top Rank is proud to announce that pound-for-pound superstar and the current WBO welterweight world champion Terence “Bud” Crawford has agreed to new multi-year agreement with the company. Crawford, who originally signed with Top Rank in 2011, has captured world titles in three weight classes and won the award for best fighter at the 2018 ESPYS.
“I am the best fighter in the world, hands down. ESPN is the biggest brand in sports and Top Rank is the biggest promotional company in boxing,” Crawford said. “This was a no-brainer for me and my team. All of the super fights that the world wants to see will happen. Mark my words. Like I’ve said before, I want all of the champions in the welterweight division.”
“Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford is the world’s best boxer,” said Top Rank CEO Bob Arum. “We will continue our ongoing campaign to establish him as one of the world’s most recognizable athletes.”
“Without a doubt, this is one of the most lucrative deals for an individual fighter in the history of boxing,” said Brian McIntyre, Crawford’s trainer/manager. “The deal that I helped put together with Top Rank and ESPN is unprecedented in the modern boxing landscape. If you think you’ve seen the best of Terence Crawford, you ain’t seen nothing yet. To all the pretenders out there who want a piece of him, you’ll get what is coming. With Top Rank and ESPN in our corner, we are going to make some of the biggest fights in the history of boxing. We will continue to show the world that Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford is one of the greatest fighters to ever lace up a pair of gloves.”
Crawford (33-0, 24 KOs), the pride of Omaha, Nebraska, is 11-0 with eight knockouts in world title bouts. He captured his first world title – the WBO lightweight crown – with a unanimous decision against Ricky Burns on March 1, 2014. Less than four months later, he cemented his status as a pound-for-pound elite with a ninth-round TKO against then-unbeaten Yuriorkis Gamboa in front of nearly 11,000 fans in Omaha. Crawford made one more defense of his lightweight title before moving up to 140 pounds.
Crawford cleaned out the 140-pound division, going 7-0 in the weight class and unifying all four major world title belts with a third-round knockout against Julius Indongo in August of last year. With nothing else to accomplish at 140 pounds, Crawford set his sights on the welterweight division. In his welterweight debut, June 9 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Crawford battered the previously undefeated Jeff Horn en route to a ninth-round stoppage victory to capture the WBO title.
Crawford, though, has unfinished business at welterweight. Armed with the backing of Top Rank and the company’s new seven-year deal with ESPN, he is ready, willing, and able to take on the division’s other world champions.
Header photo by Mikey Williams/Top Rank