Terence Crawford has reopened one of boxing’s great recent “what ifs”.
Asked about the fights he wishes had happened during his career, Crawford once again pointed towards Manny Pacquiao. He has made no secret of believing he would have beaten the Filipino legend and has gone even further by saying he would have knocked Pacquiao out.
Naturally, that has restarted the debate.
Would Crawford really have stopped Pacquiao? Would Pacquiao’s speed and angles have caused Crawford problems? Was Pacquiao kept away from Crawford? Was Crawford simply too much risk for too little reward?
They’re interesting questions.
But I think there’s a much more interesting one behind Manny Pacquiao vs Terence Crawford.
What if both fighters actually wanted it?
Because my suspicion is considerably simpler than trying to decide which version of events is completely accurate.
Manny Pacquiao wanted the fight. Terence Crawford wanted the fight. The people making money from Manny Pacquiao and Terence Crawford had much more to lose.
And if that’s true, Manny Pacquiao vs Terence Crawford tells us something much bigger about boxing.
Sometimes what’s best for business and what’s best for boxing are two completely different things.
Fighters Don’t Think Like Businessmen
Put yourself inside Terence Crawford’s head when the possibility of fighting Pacquiao was being discussed.
He’s not sitting there studying revenue projections.
He’s not worrying about promotional leverage.
He’s probably not wondering whether a defeat might reduce his value six fights down the line.
He’s looking at Manny Pacquiao.
One of the greatest fighters of his generation.
A multiple-weight world champion.
A global superstar.
A man whose name already belonged alongside the biggest names in boxing history.
And Crawford’s probably thinking something considerably simpler.
I can beat him.
That’s the mentality you almost have to possess to become an elite fighter.
You don’t reach the top of boxing by believing somebody else is better than you.
When another fighter is being described as one of the best in the world, the natural instinct isn’t necessarily to avoid him.
It’s to prove you’re better.
I imagine Pacquiao’s mentality would have been much the same.
He spent his career fighting bigger men, moving through weight divisions and accepting challenges that would have looked ridiculous earlier in his career.
Why would we automatically assume Terence Crawford frightened him?
That’s why I’ve never been particularly interested in portraying Manny Pacquiao vs Terence Crawford as one fighter desperately chasing the other while somebody hid behind his promoter.
Maybe both genuinely believed they would win.
The problem is the fighters weren’t the only people with something at stake.
Promoters Have to Think Differently
This is where boxing becomes complicated.
A fighter sees another fighter.
A promoter sees an investment.
And I don’t necessarily mean that as criticism.
At the highest level, an elite fighter can be worth millions.
He’s not simply somebody who walks into a ring every few months and punches somebody.
He’s a television attraction.
He’s ticket sales.
He’s sponsorship.
He’s pay-per-view revenue.
He’s future fights.
He’s potentially years of income.
Manny Pacquiao was already one of boxing’s biggest commercial attractions.
Terence Crawford was developing into one of the sport’s elite fighters and somebody with the potential to become considerably more valuable.
Now imagine you’re responsible for those careers.
Why would you put them together?
From a boxing perspective, the answer is obvious.
Because they’re brilliant fighters and we want to know who’s better.
From a business perspective, the answer becomes considerably more difficult.
Because somebody has to lose.
Somebody’s Golden Goose Was Going to Lose Its Shine
That’s the part we sometimes overlook when demanding the biggest fights.
Imagine you have two enormously valuable fighters.
Both can headline events.
Both can generate money.
Both can continue winning.
Both have several profitable fights available.
Then you put them against each other.
One leaves the ring even more valuable.
The other doesn’t.
Perhaps the loser remains a major attraction.
Perhaps the defeat does absolutely nothing to his long-term commercial value.
But perhaps it does.
Why take the chance?
Why risk damaging one valuable asset when you can continue making money from both separately?
That’s the uncomfortable business argument behind Manny Pacquiao vs Terence Crawford.
And I understand it.
If your responsibility is protecting an investment, it makes perfect sense.
The problem is that if everybody in boxing followed that logic, the best would almost never fight the best.
What’s Best for Business Isn’t Always What’s Best for Boxing
This is where the interests of the sport and the interests of the business surrounding it collide.
Fighters build their legacies by accepting risk.
Promoters protect their businesses by managing risk.
Sometimes those two objectives work perfectly together.
A huge fight becomes so commercially valuable that the risk becomes worthwhile for everybody.
But sometimes they pull in completely opposite directions.
A fighter might want the dangerous opponent because beating him enhances his legacy.
The promoter might look at exactly the same opponent and wonder why he should risk millions when there are three easier fights available.
Neither side is necessarily being irrational.
They’re simply trying to achieve different things.
And boxing has always struggled with that conflict.
I’ve written before about how boxing sometimes makes itself unnecessarily difficult for people to follow:
This is another example.
Fans don’t care that keeping two stars apart might maximise their combined earning potential.
They want to see them fight.
Sport ultimately needs uncertainty.
It needs risk.
It needs those moments where nobody knows what’s going to happen until two great fighters finally meet in the ring.
Take that away and eventually you’re selling names rather than competition.
I Understand the Business Argument
This is where I probably differ from some boxing fans.
I don’t automatically think promoters are evil every time a fight doesn’t happen.
Their job isn’t simply to give us whatever fight we want.
They’re running businesses.
They’re responsible for careers.
They’re negotiating television contracts, purses and future opportunities.
If you’ve spent years developing somebody into a valuable fighter, deliberately putting that investment into the most dangerous possible fight isn’t necessarily sensible business.
Let’s say Fighter A can make you millions over his next five fights.
Fighter B can do exactly the same.
Put them together now and one of those futures might become less valuable overnight.
Keep them apart and both continue generating money.
The maths isn’t particularly difficult.
But that’s exactly the problem.
Boxing isn’t supposed to be decided by a spreadsheet.
At some point, somebody has to accept the risk.
Otherwise we never discover who was actually better.
Pacquiao and Crawford Had Different Risks
There’s another interesting part of Manny Pacquiao vs Terence Crawford.
They weren’t necessarily risking the same thing.
Pacquiao already had his legacy.
By the time Crawford became a realistic opponent, Manny Pacquiao had achieved more than enough to be remembered as one of the greatest fighters of his era.
Crawford had considerably more to gain.
Imagine Crawford beating Pacquiao.
Suddenly he hasn’t simply beaten another world champion.
He’s beaten Manny Pacquiao.
That becomes one of the defining victories of his career.
For Pacquiao, the reward wasn’t necessarily as significant.
Beating Crawford would undoubtedly have strengthened an already extraordinary record.
But Pacquiao didn’t need Crawford to prove he was great.
Everybody already knew.
That creates another business calculation.
One fighter potentially gains everything.
The other has considerably more to lose.
Again, I’m not saying Pacquiao himself thought that way.
That’s the entire point.
Maybe he didn’t.
Maybe Pacquiao looked at Crawford and thought exactly what Crawford thought looking back at him.
I can beat him.
But the people managing their careers didn’t have the luxury of thinking purely like fighters.
Boxing Has Become Too Afraid of Losing
There is another reason why these calculations have become so important.
Boxing has developed an unhealthy relationship with defeat.
One loss and suddenly a fighter is exposed.
Two losses and people start asking whether he’s finished.
An unbeaten prospect can spend years being carefully developed, only for one defeat to completely change the way he’s discussed.
I’ve written about that problem before:
And it feeds directly into situations like Manny Pacquiao vs Terence Crawford.
If defeat is treated like commercial disaster, why wouldn’t promoters become cautious?
Why wouldn’t managers protect undefeated records?
Why wouldn’t everybody wait until the financial reward becomes enormous before accepting the risk?
Yet look at the greatest fighters in boxing history.
Most of them lost.
Pacquiao certainly did.
Those defeats haven’t destroyed his legacy.
If anything, they’re part of it.
Because Pacquiao repeatedly took risks.
He fought great fighters.
He moved through divisions.
He put himself in situations where losing was genuinely possible.
That’s what made people care.
Instead of a Result, We Have an Argument
And this is ultimately what boxing lost when Manny Pacquiao vs Terence Crawford never happened.
Crawford can now say he would have knocked Pacquiao out.
Maybe he’s right.
Pacquiao’s supporters can say Crawford would never have dealt with Manny’s speed, movement, angles and relentless attacks.
Maybe they’re right.
We can argue about it forever.
Crawford’s adaptability could have been the difference.
Pacquiao’s explosiveness could have been the difference.
Maybe Crawford eventually figured him out.
Maybe Pacquiao overwhelmed him before he got the opportunity.
Nobody knows.
Nobody will ever know.
And neither side can ever be proved wrong.
Instead of having a result, boxing has another argument.
That’s the consequence we don’t see when the business decision is being made.
At the time, keeping two valuable fighters apart might make complete financial sense.
Ten years later, all we’re left with is another fight we wish we’d seen.
Manny Pacquiao vs Terence Crawford Was Bigger Than Either Man
That’s why I don’t think we need to decide who prevented Manny Pacquiao vs Terence Crawford from happening.
Maybe Crawford’s version is right.
Maybe Pacquiao’s version is closer to the truth.
Maybe different people blocked the fight at different stages.
Maybe circumstances simply never aligned.
I’m far more interested in what the fight represents.
Because I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if both fighters wanted it.
They’re fighters.
Their instinct is to prove they’re better than the man standing opposite them.
The people surrounding them have a different responsibility.
They have to think about money.
They have to think about future fights.
They have to think about television.
They have to think about what happens to the value of their fighter if everything goes wrong.
That’s understandable.
But there has to be a point where boxing stops protecting what might happen tomorrow and gives us the fight that matters today.
Otherwise the sport simply creates more what-ifs.
Greatness Requires Somebody to Take the Risk
Boxing history isn’t remembered because promoters successfully maximised the value of their assets.
We remember Ali and Frazier.
Leonard and Hearns.
Hagler and Hearns.
Barrera and Morales.
Pacquiao and Márquez.
Fights where great fighters accepted that discovering who was better mattered more than protecting what they already had.
That’s what greatness requires.
Risk.
There was always a possibility somebody’s reputation would be damaged.
There was always a possibility somebody would lose.
That’s the point.
Manny Pacquiao vs Terence Crawford should have given us another answer.
Instead, years later, Crawford can tell us what he believes would have happened and Pacquiao fans can tell us why he’s wrong.
We’ll never settle it.
Perhaps keeping them apart was good business.
Perhaps everybody involved made perfectly rational financial decisions.
But boxing history isn’t built on good investments.
It’s built on great fighters taking risks.
And Manny Pacquiao vs Terence Crawford is another reminder that what’s best for business isn’t always what’s best for boxing.
The Fight Never Happened – So You Decide
Would Terence Crawford really have knocked Manny Pacquiao out? Would Pacquiao’s speed and angles have caused Crawford problems even he couldn’t solve? Or do you think the real tragedy is simply that boxing never gave us the opportunity to find out?
Let me know what you think in the comments and share this article with another boxing fan who’ll probably disagree with you.
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