In November 2021, Terrence Crawford announced that he was splitting fromboxing promoter Bob Arum after a long work relationship with Arum’s promotional company Top Rank. However, the relation between Crawford and the 90-year-old promoter may not be the same again: the Nebraska native filed a lawsuit against Arum and demands a compensation payment for $10 million.
In 2011, Crawford linked his boxing career to Top Rank. Since then, he has accomplished notorious goals: he has become World Champion in 3 different weight classes (Lightweight, Super lightweight, and Welterweight), and also was the Unified World Super lightweight Champion. Currently, he is the WBO World Welterweight titleholder.
Thanks to his impressive record of 38-0-0 (29 KO’s),Budis nowadays considered as one of the top Pound for Pound boxers in the world. On his last performance on November 2021, he defeated former World Champion Shawn Porter by the way of TKO.
Terrence Crawford sues Bob Arum and Top Rank for $10 million
The 34-year-old boxer has hired attorney Bryan Freedman and has filed a lawsuit against Top Rank in Nevada’s Eighth Judicial District Court. He wants the already mentioned economic compensation for damages against his boxing career due to Bob Arum’s racist behavior.
“Arum clearly allows his revolting racial bias to impact the fighters he is obliged to promote. Simply does not care about, support, or know how to promote Black fighters. It is painfully clear that Top Rank, and especially Arum, judges people based on their race. Arum’s sordid history with athletes of color, especially Black fighters, and his bias favoring white and Latino fighters is well-documented and known throughout the boxing world”, mentions the lawsuit according to New York Post.
The suit also exposes that Terrence Crawford considers that Bob Arum’s racist ways have not allowed him to become a pay-per-view top seller. Obviously, this fact has deprived Crawford of signing the best fights available for him: “(Bob Arum) Launched a smear campaign against Crawford to paint him as an unexciting, unprofitable fighter who could not draw viewers“.
Crawford’s lawsuit even tells that other boxing figures such as mighty Floyd Mayweather Jr or promoter Al Haymon have been touched by the racism of Bob Arum: “Arum makes no secret of his deep-seated bias against Black fighters. For example, he called legendary Black boxer Floyd Mayweather ‘soft’ and claimed that he ‘shoots up cars’ — reinforcing an invidious racist stereotype with no basis in fact, and he consistently mocks rival boxing promoter Al Haymon — who is a Black man — and his relationship with Black fighters, saying Haymon would steer a Black fighter away from fighting Crawford out of a sense of ‘brotherhood’ “.
Bob Arum has already pronounced himself after Crawford lawsuit
The 90-year-old promoter has shared, also to theNew York Post, his point of view of the legal challenge he has ahead. He points out that Terrence Crawford has made him lose $20 million during his work relationship and blames the boxer for his own marketing results.
“Don’t call a man a racist when really this is because of your own failures. His marketability didn’t measure up to this ability and that has absolutely nothing to do with what race he is…The outstanding fact is that Terence’s numbers on PPV have always been dreadful because of his failure to market himself“, stated Arum.
Bob Arum blames Crawford for his own results. (Mikey Williams/Top Rank Inc via Getty Images)
