Terence Crawford Lays It All Out On IG Live About The Errol Spence Jr. Fight

After taking heat for more than a week over the fallout of negotiations for a fight before the end of 2022 with his welterweight rival, Errol “The Truth” Spence, Terence Crawford announced early on Tuesday afternoon he’d have his unedited, unfiltered say about the state of things via his Instagram account.

Shortly after 10 p.m. ET, ‘Bud' did just that. NYFights monitored the feed, and we have a full written transcript of Crawford’s own words. For those of you who need the TL; DR version, here you go:

• Crawford laid the blame squarely at the feet of manager Al Haymon.
• Crawford claims the talks broke down when Haymon refused offers Crawford claims he brought to him from two “hedge funds” willing to bankroll the fight.
• Crawford says both were willing to pay each fighter $25 million up front, guaranteed.
• Crawford says he communicated directly with Spence.
• Crawford says he told Spence the upfront deal was the right deal, because it didn’t rely on backend PPV money. “No one buys PPVs anymore,” said Crawford.
• Crawford says he doesn’t blame Spence, because Spence works for Haymon, where Crawford is a “free agent” and “an independent businessman” who can make his decisions.
• Crawford said he got tired for waiting on Haymon to get back to him about the offers. He wanted to fight at least once in 2022, so he scheduled the fight against David Avanesyan.
• Crawford claims he’s willing to fight young starts Jaron “Boots” Ennis or Vergil Ortiz, Jr., but implied neither of them or their teams approached him, and Avanesyan’s team did.

The full transcript from the Terrence Crawford IG live stream

Ah, all right. So listen, y'all. I'm about to give it to y'all raw and uncut. 

You know, I started talking to Team Spence, I would say, and Al Haymon and them in May. You know, right after his fight, you know, this going back and forth, you know.

They send me a proposal with the interest of a Spence and Crawford fight. We didn't get a contract until August. And, you know, it was just kind of like, a regular contract. You know, it wasn't nothing. It was an initial proposal. It wasn't even a contract. It was a proposal, Spence/Crawford, the intentions of us fighting.

Okay, so we going on basically, the negotiations of what a contract would look like, before we actually got the actual contract. Al goes into saying a guy that I don't know, never represented me, not affiliated with Team Crawford, have no whatsoever place (in) Team Crawford's stable representing me in that contract, which I have nothing upon that I agreed to. So basically, that was a standpoint of what the contract would look like.

So basically, I'm talking to Al, and I’m like “Al, come on man. I don’t even know this guy. How can you do that? And one of the guys says that he's supporting your team” and whatnot. And, you know, we going back and back, back and forth, back and forth.

You know, Al’s a good dude, man. Al’s a charming guy. you know, and he's a cool, dude. You know, I kind of like talking to him, but at the same time, Spence is Al’s guy. I'm not, so of course, he's gonna do what's best for his fighter, his guy. That's like, you know, any other manager slash advisor would do. He will do the best for his fighter.

So, you know, me and Al we talked on the phone. I get advice from other guys in PBC. They tell me, you know, be careful, make sure the deal is right. They tell me make sure you don't get fucked. You know, just normal things from guys in their stable that I'm friends with. – I honestly can say I'm friends with.

So, you know, we've gone on and on, you know, and, of course me and Al, we're going back and forth, back and forth. About the numbers. We are not going back and forth about anything else. We are just going back and forth about the numbers.

I have two companies, you know, that reached out to me that wanted to give me and Spence $25 million, guaranteed, upfront.

So, a real guy like myself. I call Spence. “Hey bro, look. Listen. I got this company that's willing to give us 25 million apiece. Guaranteed. What’s up? What you gonna do?”

He's like, “$25 million? What about the backend?”  I'm like, “Dude, listen, if they make their money back, then we get 80-20.” It's simple math. I said, man, people buying – I mean, stealing the fight. They got the Firesticks. He's like, “Man, I gotta a Firestick too.” I'm like, “See! Man, nobody's really buying – I mean PPVs no more. Man, we get this upfront money. It's a no-brainer.”

I would say the difference between me and between Spence is I’m really my own boss now. And he's not. He's got to go to Al, he got to go to his team and ask them if he can do certain things that I don't have to do.

I had to when I was with Top Rank, because I was signed to Top Rank. They was my promotional company. So of course, I had to go to Top Rank and ask them to get me this fight or do this for me or do that for me, because I was obligated to do certain things by their standard because I was signed to them.

But now that I'm a free agent I'm free to do whatever I want. I'm the one sitting at the table. I'm the one that's talking directly to these high end individuals.

Errol Spence is not talking to Terence Crawford about the fight. You know, Errol Spence wasn't at the table. Errol Spence can’t tell you or show you a contract that says Terence Crawford, Errol Spence that he was there on negotiations of. He can't do it. He had to go back and ask Al for permission, you know, if he can, you know, take this big chunk lump sum of money to fight Terence Crawford.

He didn't call me back. So I hit up Al. I got this big hedge fund company out here. You know, they claim they know you. Not one, but two. Not one, but two, you what I mean, two companies willing to put 20 plus million in both of our pockets guaranteed.

Al tell me, straight up,”I'm not letting nobody touch this fight.” All right, cool. But I'm like, why? He’s like, “Why you want to put a ceiling, put a cap on yourself?” And so I'm like, “Well, that's not putting a cap on myself. It is this company taking risks. High risk, high reward.” If that's the case, I can’t see a fight’s been doing billions, you know, since Floyd and them.

You know, I said, “Since this fight is dragging on with me and Spence and we can’t get things together, why don't I come out and meet you with my lawyer and we just wrap it up? Just me and you.”

Al said his mother was not doing so well. And I honor that, and I respect that, you know. Family first, I'm a family-oriented type of guy. So I know what it is to, you know, put your family first. So I'm cool with that.

But then again, you know, as negotiations still drag on, I had stated that I wanted to fight in this year. I asked Al again because we seem we wasn’t getting nowhere.

So I asked, “Al, why don't you get Spence and you, since you’re his representative, and I'll get myself and my lawyer and we just make this fight. Anything we got to do, we can do right there and signed, sealed, delivered.” Al told me straight up. “Hey, never happened in the history of ever, where two fighters sit down at the table, and they come to agreement and they get a fight made like that. Not even Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao.”

So I'm like okay, well, OK, first time for everything. I've never heard a fighter ever taking zero guarantee in a fight. I never heard of a fighter taking 0% of a guarantee. That is something that's new to me, but that's something that I was willing to do to make this fight happen.

You know, a lot of people, they say “Oh, well, Terence, you ducked,” or “Terence, you did this and you don't want to fight Spence.’ I was the only one taking all the risks.

You know, I told him, “OK cool. I’ll take no guarantee. I take, you know, the lesser end of the money. Whatever it is, I take it because that's how much confidence I’ve got that I'm gonna beat that man.”

That's how much confidence I got, I'm gonna beat that man. So even though I know I was getting fucked in the long run, I just, you know, want a little transparency.

I said, okay, if I'm going to bet on myself, and I'm gonna go against all the odds, then I want me a little transparency. I want to be able to write off on things that's going to affect my check. Of course, I want to see if the numbers add up to what they tell me,  It's just simple to me. To think that a person will go into business with a person 50/50 and this person would tell them, “Well, you got to give me 50% out, and I give you 50%.” And then you say, “Oh, well, I'm not gonna tell you how much we really made. But I'm gonna just give you this and you just got to trust it.”

Come on now. It don't make no sense. I never was offered a guarantee. Not once. I've never was given anything. But here, you want this fight? We gonna fuck you and then me you got what you want.

But, you know, that's how much confidence and faith I have in myself. You know, I actually took it all. I took it all. I took the risk, you know, big risk, big reward. That's how I look at it. I believe in my abilities, and I believe in myself.

So I'm like, it's whatever. Errol Spence, he can't say the same. You can't say the same. You know, he’s on audio saying, “Oh, hey, we're gonna go make sure he's good. he's in the best position to win this fight.” Of course, he is supposed to get everything surrounding you to help you.

So, people are mad at me because Al told me if I don't take this fight, he's just gonna go and Errol Spence is gonna make eight figures without me. So basically, he tells me, “You take this fight or leave it, and you’ve got nothing.” Basically, because we've been dragging and dragging and dragging.

So I don't know, the type of caliber of people that he'd been dealing with, or they've been dealing with, but I'm not the type of guy to just sit on my ass and sit on my hands for no man to feed my family. So, you mad at me for taking a fight with a tough opponent? You know, you may not know him, but he's a tough opponent. For a bigger purse, a guarantee I wasn’t even going to get. You crazy in the head!

So now here we go. You know, I mean back to square one. Like what do you really expect? You expect me to be disrespected? Ran over, stepped on, and just sit there and just take it? That's crazy. That ain’t my style.

See, me personally, I wasn't even gonna say nothing because I'm not the talkative type. You all pretty much know that. But sometimes you know, you gotta say what’s real. You got to say what is on your mind. You got to stop letting these people just do what they want, which a lot of people say, “well, did you ask to see Bob Arum's books? Did you ask for transparency with Bob Arum?” 

Do you know want to know why? I was signed to Bob. I wasn't my own boss. I was given a guarantee on every single fight that I fought for Bob Arum and Top Rank. That's the difference. That's the difference, you guys. So if you guys can’t understand that, then I don't know what to tell you. I don't know what to tell you.

You know, so I stated that I want a fight this year, and that was my thing. I wanted to fight this year. So, we're going back and forth, back and forth, numbers, numbers, numbers, boom boom boom boom boom. So, the transparency part, that was the dragger. Where was Errol Spence at? I didn't hear Errol Spence. Where was the tweets? I didn't hear tweets. I didn't see the tweets. Where was this guy at? He was under a rock.

(To Spence): If you are real, if you're a real one like you say you is, like the truth? Tell the truth. Tell the truth, Buddy. Come on, man. I called you and told you, “Listen! I got this bread on the table, man. What are you doing?”

You’re not your own boss, my dude. So stop saying that you’re your own boss. Stop saying that. you’re the truth, and you this and you that. You got to answer to a lot of people. You got to answer to them, to a lot of people, and I'm not knocking that. You know I mean, it is what it is that got you to where you is now They got you to where you is now. But you know.

I'm just saying. But like, when you look at it, a lot of people say, “Oh well, why didn’t you fight Boots, or why didn’t you fight Ortiz?” Them names that never came up. I would have fought them names in a heartbeat. Come on, man. I'm the best fighter in the world. Who do you think I am? I'm the best fighter in the world. I always fought my mandatories. I never ducked my mandatories.

Yet still, I hear through the grapevine Spence is about to fight a guy that he promised and he swore that he wasn't going to fight, which is Keith Thurman. I don't know how true that is – but that's what's floating around. So what’s up with the trueness with that? You swear up and down that you're not going to fight this guy. You don't care what nobody say. Now you’re about to fight him. So that means he was lying.

But you know why you gotta fight Thurman? You want to know why, fans? Because of the money! It's all about the money. Come on now. He’s not gonna make that much money fighting Ortiz, or fighting Boots. Come on man, it’s obvious. Who's Spence gonna fight besides me that will make him 20 million dollars? Nobody.

But I'm gonna tell you all like this. I don't know truthful it is, but you know, Floyd’s saying he's the spokesman of PBC and he's Al’s right-hand man. We’ve heard that on numerous occasions. Floyd came out and said that the fight wasn’t happening in this year. So you’re mad at me for going to get it back? When did that ever happen? You’re all mad at me? Come on man.

We’re going to turn up with BLK, you know, we going to do our thing, man. We’re stepping up to the plate, man. They’re turning boxing around. All the biggest fights, going through them. They’re the new way. Hey, giving these fighters their just due. You want to fight this guy, you want to fight this guy? They want to make it happen. It's simple.

You know, but my intention is still the same. After this fight, Spence is successful, I’m successful. He’s says he’s going to spend the block. Let him spend the block and drop him off where he stands. We’ll be ready for whatever.

And you fans, you can chop it up, and edit it, and put it however y'all want and try to change the narrative or my words. But September 10th tune into BLK Prime. We in the building! Tune in y’all. If you don't, you know I mean y'all some haters, if you do not mean it is what it is. Support the Kid!