Crawford is fresh off an eighth round TKO win against John Molina last Dec. 10 at the CenturyLink Center, Omaha, Nebraska to bag his second tile in the 140 pounds light welterweight limit.
The 29-year-old Omaha native is unbeaten in 30 pro fights with 21 of those wins coming via knockout.
Pacquiao, who is coming off a unanimous decision win over Jessie Vargas last Nov. 5 at the Thomas & Mack Center, Paradise, Nevada, has yet to score a knockout win since 2009 when he scored a 12th round KO over Miguel Cotto of Puerto Rico.
After his loss to Floyd Mayweather in May 2015, Pacquiao bounced back to score a unanimous decision win oven Timothy Bradley last year.
Crawford, who is also being promoted by Bob Arum, who has been Pacquiao’s longtime promoter, is expected to give Pacquiao a tough fight because of his speed and punching power.
Pacquiao’s trainer, Freddie Roach has recently shared his thoughts on the proposed Pacquiao-Crawford fight.
“It’s not an easy fight. It’s a tough fight, yes, but it’s one that we have to say yes to if that’s the only thing out there because we don’t wanna just be fighting nobodies and so forth to stay in the game. We still want to be the best…if you can’t be the best in something, or if you have no dream of winning another world title, you don’t need to be in this sport because you’ll get hurt.”
“He’s big enough [of a name]…he will definitely be on the table and he is a Top Rank fighter so it’s a fight Bob [Arum] can make pretty easily I feel. It’s a tough fight. Ray Beltran did well with him and he seems like he’s getting better, he can move for 12 rounds, he has great legs and he’s a bit of a puncher and I think he’s like a young Mayweather but he probably has a better punch than Mayweather,” Roach told Fight Hub TV.
While Roach had a hand in choosing many of Pacquiao’s past opponents, he’s a bit careful in picking Pacquiao’s opponent because he could be criticized for choosing easy fights to assure a win for Pacquiao.
Despite Roach’s cautious statement about Crawford’s toughness, he knows that Pacquiao is formidable at 140 pounds because it is actually his real and natural fighting weight.
A well-conditioned Pacquiao could easily hand Crawford his first loss at 140 pounds.
