He may be preparing for a superfight against Canelo Alvarez, but Terence Crawford wanted to fight Manny Pacquiao over a decade ago.
Terence Crawford broke a 100-year-old record in 2014 to become world champion, a time when he was in discussion for a clash with the legendary Manny Pacquiao for a title fight.
Bud was next in line to face Pacquiao in 2017 before Pac-Man was controversially beaten by Jeff Horn, a man Crawford would knock out a year later.
This scuppered chances of a fight between Crawford and Pacquiao, although it looked like the fight never really had a chance of happening, regardless of the Horn result.
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Terence Crawford admitted Manny Pacquiao’s coach didn’t want them to fight
Crawford told the tale of Pacquiao’s coach seemingly ducking a fight with him as far back as 2014 in his interview with Joe Rogan in 2019.
On The Joe Rogan Experience, Crawford admitted he was rooting for Pacquiao to beat Horn, as it meant a big-money fight in the future for Bud against the eight-weight champion.
However, he admitted that the pair had been in discussions as far back as 2014, before claiming that neither Pacquiao nor his coach seemed interested in the fight.
Crawford said: “I wanted to fight Pacquiao because I was the next in line to fight the champion, so of course I was rooting for Pacquiao.
“Jeff Horn was hitting Pacquiao and just brutally bullying him, roughing him up. They can say he was being dirty sometimes, sure, but it’s a fight.
I was in discussions to fight Pacquiao since 2014, and we were in the same promotional company, but they couldn’t make it happen.
“I don’t think he was interested in it, because his coach mentioned numerous times that he didn’t want him to fight me—he wanted him to stay away from me.”
Terence Crawford knocked out Jeff Horn 11 months after he controversially beat Manny Pacquiao
While he never got the fight with Pacquiao, Crawford went one better by finishing the man who cost him the dream fight with the Filipino legend.
Less than a year after the Horn/Pacquiao bout, Crawford stepped up to challenge Horn in his first Welterweight bout.
He finished the WBO Welterweight champion in the ninth round of their 2018 bout, outpunching him throughout the bout, a slick, defensive performance from Bud.
While many thought the jump up in weights was too much, Crawford dominated the fight to win another world title in a third different weight class so far.
He has since gone on to win a fourth, and could make it five when Crawford faces Canelo on September 13.