Keith Thurman? How?

I'm not going to drag it out and make it seem like PBC does something other promotional companies don't do because Top Rank, Golden boy, etc....all try to stay in house. The thing is crossover fights happen if both camps want the fight to happen. Crawford has had 6 fighters who have confirmed themselves that they turned down a fight/offer/negotiation vs Crawford for various reasons...... Danny Garcia, Shawn Porter, Vergil Ortiz Jr., Jaron Ennis, Tim Tszyu, & Sebastian Fundora.....each have had a rep in their camp publicly confirm that the fight was on the table and they decided against it. Fights not happening is not always on the promotion company. The camp has to want it as well.

& When has Crawford ever been a mandatory for a belt held by a PBC fighter? Crawford has consistently held at least one world title since 2014 after beating Ricky burns. Since then only time he's been without a title is when he relinquishes it to move up and fight for a title in the next division. Most times if you hold a world title in the division, you aren't ranked by the other sanctioning bodies in that same division, thus you aren't the mandatory. In the current division for Crawford he holds the 154lb WBA title. He was elevated to the WBO interim their protocol of the WBO title holder in one division has a right to challenge the WBO holder in the next division.

Crawford went through the proper channels to try to get the fight vs Tim Tszyu upon moving up from 147lbs. Tim negotiate a fight vs Keith Thurman at a catchweight..... When Thurman got injured, Tim decided to go in the direction of Sebastian Fundora to attempt to unify, then lost. Crawford then petitioned the WBO to fight Fundora whom held the WBO at 154lbs......Fundora's camp from the jump stated they wasn't interested and was trying to fight the guy Crawford dominated previously in Errol Spence Jr. They actually seemed willing to vacate the WBO to fight Spence rather than defend it vs Crawford.

So I'm not sure what you mean by stated Crawford does himself no favors by not forcing mandatories..... He was never a mandatory. But he has petitioned to fight both holders of the WBO. What else is he supposed to do?

 

Yea, we can call it PBC, but it's done by other fighters not signed by PBC as well. Let's not forget, Golden Boy's own Vergil Ortiz Jr. was Crawford's mandatory for 2 years. Was offered the fight by the WBO twice and turned it down forcing them to drop him from his mandatory status and pushed Porter up and then mandated the fight..... Porter was on his podcast talking about trying to do rematches vs Thurman, Spence, Ugas, even moving up to 154/60....but then the WBO spoiled all that. Crawford put him in retirement.

P.S. Ennis was never PBC. He was just signed to Showtime and being that PBC had the larger events, Ennis would be put on their cards for exposure. That's the reason why before his last fight, he never made more than $450k on a purse.