Team Crawford Cool With WBO’s Plan of 4-18 Winner Fighting Algieri

SATURDAY AM UPDATE: Site searching has gotten tougher in the last couple months, with the sudden excess of content out and about, what with the Al Haymon imprint being felt far and wide in the game.

So it was a bit elongated a search when Top Rank looked for a site to place the next bout for their Fighter of the Year, Terence Crawford.

Vegas, no, Nebraska, no. NYC, no. This place booked, that place booked. So the Crawford vs. Thomas Dumorme tangle, with the winner to get a crack at the former holde of the WBO’s junior welter strap, Chris Algieri, will land April 18 in Arlington, Texas.

Top Rank exec Carl Moretti confirmed Arlington with TSS. The joint at U. Texas-Arlington holds 5-6,000, and ESPN has been there a few times for fights. “You don’t just put your Fighter of the Year in a casino ballroom! And we wanted to take him out of Omaha this time.” Makes good sense…kid deserves extra attention and care, and they want the rest of the nation to pick up on his arsenal.

That bout will be presented on HBO as part of a split feed, with the banger vs banger special, Ruslan Provodnikov vs. Lucas Matthysse, as well.

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The WBO 140 pound crown will be up for grabs when Terence Crawford and Thomas Dulorme clash for it, site TBD–we are hearing Texas is in the top spot as platform–and you can check out the scrap on HBO.

The winner off that Nebraska vs. Puerto Rico tangle must face off with Chris Algieri, we learned today, as mandated by the WBO. They had yanked the strap from Algieri when he decided to try his luck at welterweight, and Manny Pacquiao, in December.

Team Crawford says they are all good with that plan, basically. “I figured as much,” trainer/co-manager Brian MacIntyre told me. “As long as the money is right, we gotta make it happen.

“Listen, you are going to see the best of Terence Crawford at 140. That weight class is stacked.”

Algieri, Mac said, is a solid boxer. Yes, Pacman knocked him down, but he kept on getting up. “He comes to fight,” said MacIntyre. “And after this fight, against Dulorme, shoot, if they said Mayweather next, it’s cool, as long as the money’s right!”

The 27-year-old Crawford (25-0 with 17 KOs; still buzzed about being voted BWAA Fighter of the Year for 2014) is at about 152 or 153 now, and has been training for about three weeks. “We’re about to step it up,” Mac said. That means heading to Colorado for the next six and a half weeks. They will work with the Army team, work at altitude, and get looks from Julian Williams and likely KeAndre Gibson as well.

Dulorme (22-1 with 14 KOs; age 25; last fought and beat Hank Lundy SD10 on Dec. 6) isn’t so worrying to Mac. He sees him as a “good boxer” but something of a “front runner,” better for five, six rounds, and then he tends to drop off.

Readers, weigh in…what do you think happens in Crawford-Dulorme, and how does Algieri fare against the winner?

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