Why is Bud Crawford not as big a star as Mayweather was?

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Lots of reasons. Crawford has faced many good fighters in his career. But they weren't high profile facts. Bud has only had ONE high profile fight in his career and it happened two days ago. High profile is you made a ton of money.

So then the question become why hasn't Bud had the high profile facts that Mayweather had. For one Floyd left Top Rank much sooner than Bud did because it was obvious to Floyd that Top Rank wasn't going to promote him the way he wanted to be promoted.

Also we are looking back on Floyd career after it is done. Floyd actually wasn't a HUGE, HUGE star until the later third of his career. It was always one of Floyd gripes. He believe Top Rank held him back from a marketing standpoint because Top Rank didn't believe a black fighter could be the sports biggest star. At least that what Floyd believed.

Now that Bud has that huge profile fight under his belt he has a chance to finish his career in huge profile money fights, IF he keep winning his star appeal would look much different in hindsight, at least to those who are only looking at the surface level.

Floyd perfected his "money" character in the latter part of his career. At that point he had mega success and made a lot of money and become super braggadocious and half the people loved it and the other half hated it. But either way if you see a guy who has had mega success constantly tooting his own horn you are going to feel some type of way about it.

It's like when Lebron James made that oft hand comment about fans who boo'd him. He said something to the effect of he didn't care because he was a muti millionaire and those fans would still have to woke up to their pathetic lives everyday. It caused a big stir.

Floyd basically take that line of thinking and run with it for a decade not only applying it to fans but other fighters, promoters, etc. I mean people were paying HUGE money to tune just in hopes to see Floyd lose. That's never happened before where people are paying crazy money just in hopes of watching a guy lose.

No one has ever perfected a character as well as Floyd perfected his "money" character. And yet there was just as many that loved Floyd and believed a lot of the "HATE" was because he was a black man who had mastered the game and did what no one ever thought was possible in terms of revenue.

In the WWE that's what you call be OVER. Floyd was drawing an insane amount of heat like nothing no one had ever seen before. Heck I've never seen a WWE wrestler as over as Floyd was and that's what they specialize in, getting their "bad guys" or "heels" over.


Floyd was the most OVER guy ever in boxing history. And when you are over that's when you make the huge money.


Wrestling terms:

Over: Refers to a wrestler (and/or his character) generating a reaction from the fans. A heel is considered to be “over” when generating boos and “You Suck!” chants, while a face is considered to be “over” when generating cheers.

Heat: In terms of crowd reaction, heat is usually used to denote how much of a reaction a heel wrestler receives, but can also be used for a babyface.


*Note* Now you see a lot of rappers and other wanna be doing the stuff Floyd popularized like posting their expensive cars, houses, clothes etc on social media. Burning $100 bills in the clubs, etc. Hardly anyone was doing that stuff before Floyd. I remember the first time Floyd burnt those $100 bills, it created HUGE conversation. Half the people was like it was disrespectful to the people who needed the money, the other half was like Floyd was so rich, didn't the money and it was HIS money, so he can do with it whatever he want to. Whether you liked it or not EVERYBODY was talking about it. Floyd was not only a boxing genius, he was a marketing genius. He knew how to push people buttons like no other.

Floyd understood there was a certain segment of people that didn't care to see a young black man super rich, successful and constantly flaunting their sucess and he used that knowledge to his advantage like no one ever has. By CONSTANTLY rubbing it in people face.

There will never be another Floyd. Whether that's a good or bad thing is a matter of perspective.

 

You did an excellent job of using the wrestling references. Mayweather was a big heel and intentionally became one. But Ali was one of the first to also use this strategy. Ali admitted he was influenced by the Gorgeous George gimmick. It's a smart way to get people to react to you especially for black fighters.

 

May sold the bad guy image everyone tuned in to watch him get beat you can see it in the Pac fight when Manny got all the cheers it hurt him

 

Mayweather had a lot of legendary fighters active during his career to build his legacy. Unfortunately for Crawford, there are no great opponents for him to prove himself against. One thing I can say with absolute certainty is that Crawford is a great fighter and up there with the very best.

 

Bud lives in Omaha, Nebraska FFS. Not Vegas. Not Hollywood. He's made a tidy sum of money, and he's not the type to be making it
snow with strippers. With his modest lifestyle he doesn't need to market himself like Floyd did who had a very expensive lifestyle. i would guess that Floyd routinely wears more money in jewelry than what Bud's home is worth.

Besides, Crawford couldn't possibly make as much money as Floyd, as he's been fighting such no names as Jeff Horn, Kavaliauskas, and
Avanesyan, as opposed to the huge and marketable fights that Floyd had with Pacquio, DLH, Conor McGregor (!), Canelo, Hatton etc etc.

Crawford risks not making a top ten All time WW list because of his weak opponents. I'm not blaming the guy, just saying he's fighting who is around and there are no Hearns, SRL, Durans etc out there for him.