Lonergan Promises ‘Blood & Guts’ From Horn-Crawford
Days away from his second title defense, Jeff Horn’s promoter, Dean Lonergan, feels like the school teacher turned world champion will beat the Vegas odds and take down Terence Crawford.
In an exclusive conversation with FIGHT SPORTS, the outspoken promoter claims that even though they ran into issues with Top Rank in re-scheduling the WBO welterweight title clash, their relationship with Bob Arum is “sensational,” especially when it comes to giving Horn major exposure on ESPN.
The ESPN deal has been at the center of this fight after the fight was moved from April 14th, to June 9th, due to ESPN scheduling conflicts and not a hand injury to Crawford.
When asked about the deal, which has Crawford and Horn’s fight on the new ESPN+ platform, Lonergan knows that Crawford is being looked at as a cornerstone of its boxing programming.
“They’re expecting Terence Crawford to be one of their anchors to their platform,” Lonergan told FIGHT SPORTS from Las Vegas on Tuesday. “I think Top Rank’s matchmakers have made another mistake like they did last year, when they brought the golden goose, Manny Pacquiao, down to Australia.”
“At the start of Pacquiao’s world tour [he was set to] make millions of dollars, Jeff Horn was supposed to be a pushover. Turned out that wasn’t the case, and it’s certainly not the case here in this fight. You know the bookies in Las Vegas have Jeff Horn at 6-1, 7-1… Here’s what I can tell you. This is a two horse race, and I reckon at best its a 50/50 fight. We’ve seen flaws in Crawford’s game.. he’s not unbeatable and he’s not unbreakable.”
When it comes to bell time on June 9th, Longergan, Horn, and Horn’s trainer/manager, Glenn Rushton, are hoping that officials don’t use Horn’s unorthodox style against him.
“We just want this to be a fight where the guys are allowed to fight,” claimed the promoter. “[Horn] does [fight] sometimes in a different and somewhat awkward style…”
“We’re expecting there’s gonna be blood and guts, and the American public are gonna walk away from this and say ‘that was one hell of a fight.'”
“It’s fair to say that we’re here to upset the plans of Top Rank, we’re here to knock Terence Crawford off his perch,” Lonergan told FIGHT SPORTS about his prediction for Saturday’s fight.
“…Many, many years ago a famous New Zealander said when he got to the top of Mount Everest, ‘well we’ve knocked the bastard off’. Well I can tell you what, this is Jeff Horn’s Mount Everest, and he’s gonna knock [Crawford] off.”