Ever since Crawfords fight against Postol there has been a narrative in this thread that Crawford somehow missed his opportunity to be a PPV star because of the way he fought Postol,I simply disagree with that notion for a variety of reasons. Craw does not have any of the ingredients to become a PPV star as of today.
Factor #1 is having a strong national/regional presence in a boxing market that matters ( ex Canelo & JCC Jr. in Mexico, Anthony Joshua in the UK,Cotto PR/NY) fact that Crawford is trying to establish a home base in Nebraska is a good thing but let's be reality,Omaha does not matter.Black american fighters usually struggle in this area regardless because we don't have a built in nationalistic base that craves boxing.Jamaican-American/Haitian-American aren't really large rabid boxing fan bases.The example of fighters i listed all have huge nationalistic/regional fan bases that will support their fighter with their wallet.He does not and it's not really his fault. Strike #1
Factor#2
Strong marketability. Whether it's because of your looks,being at the right place at the right time or your ability to talk shyt you need to give people a reason to spend money to watch you fight.The textbook example of this is Floyd Mayweather.Other examples include Oscar De La Hoya,Sugar Ray Leonard ,Mike Tyson and Conor Mcgregor/Adrien Broner as a current example. Floyd,Conor and Adrien are boxing/UFC villains based on the way they market themselves and that's how they are natrually.People will tune in just to see them lose.Oscar was the total package,he had to looks,he was Mexican-American,had the skills and was loved earlier on.That's why he was a superstar. TCraw does not have a naturally engaging personality and is ugly as fukk
.Strike #2
Factor#3.A breakthrough performance(s) that make you explode onto the sports scene.An example of this include Manny Pacquaio taking out Marco Antonio Barrera. Before that fight Manny was looked at as an intriguing fighter but he wasn't a star by any means.After the fight Larry Merchant stated"This is a fight that will shake up the boxing world”.That's all that needs to be said. Manny went on to have classic fights with the remaining two of the Mexican trio(Morales,Marquez) and the rest is history.HBO is currently trying to do that with GGG but the difference is that Manny ran through legit legends,GGG out here knocking out WCW Thunder level jobbers (whether that's all his fault is up for debate.)UFC successfully followed this blueprint with Rousey. Other examples of iconic performances that made boxing superstars would be the classic Ali-Liston,Mayweather-Gatti,Mosley-De La Hoya and The Ward-Gatti trilogy.
The last factor is where I think TCraw could have his breakthrough.If TCraw somehow gets Manny into the ring and puts on an Iconic performance that'll be his best chance in becoming a huge star.It could be his Floyd-Gatti/Shane Mosley-ODH moment.If TCraw puts on a highly technical but dominant Postol-like performance then i would admit that he may have missed his moment. however the Postol fight in the grand scheme of things really does not matter.As of right now he doesn't have any of the pre-requisites that are needed to be a boxing star.However,there are a few current fighters I do believe can reach that status if the stars align and boxing gets it's shyt together.
nika. Yeah, I accept your challenge. Get Adrien Broner on the phone & Im gon beat yo a$$"
