WBO welterweight champion Jeff Horn's promoter is not exactly buying the validity of Terence Crawford's injury which forced Horn's upcoming title defense to be delayed for a couple of months.
Dean Lonergan of Duco Events, who promotes Horn, recently talked with the AAP and called Crawford's hand injury fake and that Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, who promotes Crawford, is "bullsh*tting" Horn and Lonergan. Horn was originally set to defend his title against Crawford on April 14 in Las Vegas, but Crawford suffered a hand injury which delayed the fight and now will take place on June 9.
"This has been brought about by what I consider to be a fake injury, to be bluntly honest. So I've got no doubts that they're bullsh*tting us." Lonergan said.
Lonergan has a theory as to why the fight was delayed. Lonergan believes the injury was made as an excuse to give Top Rank and ESPN more time to advertise the fight and to have the fight take place after ESPN unveils its new ESPN+ streaming service. By the time Crawford suffered the injury, the fight had not been formally announced despite a date, venue and television card already set.
"I think the reason why the fight was delayed (was because) Top Rank had done zero promotion on the fight and hadn't formalized the agreement with ESPN," Lonergan said.
The rescheduled fight will now take place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and will likely be streamed in the United States on ESPN+. The new agreement between Top Rank Boxing and ESPN allows for certain boxing events to be streamed exclusively on the new service.
