Terence "Bud" Crawford officially retires at 42-0

[Thatrogueassdiaz]

i can agree with this..one thing that HBO did that no other outlet that aired boxing was or is able to do to a high degree was to tell a story about a fighter..its bad when a pac has to be put in a PPV main event with scrubs for ppl to be interested in said scrub's fight or why canelo still has a fanbase thats wants to see him

Exactly. They knew how to MYTHICALLY create a narrative, which created the star. Would guys like Gatti and Mayorga be stars in today's climate? They would both be mid carders at best. Their storytelling and promotion made the fighter. They also knew how to dress it up with the right pageantry that is SORELY missing in today's game.

Boxing to me is akin to bull fighting, horseback riding, and tennis, where the pageantry is the crux that creates and sustains the tradition because it appeals to the human mind's need for the hero narrative. When you lose the tradition and pageantry, people don't really care as much because all of it lacks MEANING. It's just another belt, another title, another championship. This is a problem with all American sports currently, but boxing has suffered the most because of its loss.

 

[patscorpio]

Yes, for sure. I'm not faulting them for doing it. Culturally though HBO was directly responsible for creating every mega star of the 90s and 2000s. Culturally HBO was boxing. Showtime as well, to a lesser degree, but HBO, with its production and promotion, was clearly the platform that launched mega stardom. In my opinion a large part of their demise was the departure of Floyd Mayweather and Al Haymon.

it was a balance...HBO told stories and aired the mega fights, showtime less story telling but more of the real nikka fights for the exposure to get to the mega level

HBO putting all the eggs on main events or TR and other promoters was because Al was giving HBO some fights that were like wtf? and HBO got sick of it..al brought that same mentality for showtime and subsequently PBC...and surprise showtime eventually got sick of it too

 

[patscorpio]

I wonder though if he would have been far a bigger star under TR if HBO never got rid of boxing. I feel like him fighting on ESPN hurt his stock.

i wouldn't knock the ESPN circuit...the ESPN circuit was just as important for fighters and fights to be built up with Tuesday, Wed, and Friday night fights program...more ppl had those channels than HBO....and Crawford did have fights on HBO..unfortunately not at the peak parts of his career

 

[Thatrogueassdiaz]

i wouldn't knock the ESPN circuit...the ESPN circuit was just as important for fighters and fights to be built up with Tuesday, Wed, and Friday night fights program...more ppl had those channels than HBO....and Crawford did have fights on HBO..unfortunately not at the peak parts of his career

What I'm saying is that when Terrence left from being a star created on HBO, where the entire focus of the network was boxing, to espn, where boxing was niche among other sports on the network, is when his star value diminished. Everything that built him up was removed. I mean go to look at the broadcast for the Gamboa fight on HBO. That was his coming out party in Nebraska. Everything was centered around that. That was the hero vanquishing the enemy at home for the crowd, roman theateresque.

Nothing ESPN produced came close to that for Terrence. Not even when he became undisputed at 140.

ESPN definitely was great for prospects, but for prebuilt stars? It was not. The only guy who I can say went to ESPN and became maybe a bigger star was Lomanchenko.

 

[UpAndComing]