You pay your head coach. You pay assistants. You pay strength trainers. You pay sparring partners. Managers take their percentage. Promoters take theirs. Everyone around the fighter earns when the fighter earns.
On The Joe Rogan Experience, Crawford dismissed the idea that Benn owed Eddie Hearn anything beyond his signed agreement.
“He just signed with Zuffa. And a lot of people said he was disloyal and Eddie Hearn—they were loyal to him and this and that. He’s getting 15 million for his next. Like, man, what are people talking about? I said, it’s just business. It’s not personal with them. I said, Conor Benn did what was best for him and to do what was best for his family. They and their business probably lose two straight. No questions asked.
This is gym logic. Camp lasts eight to ten weeks. You bring in fresh bodies. You sharpen the jab, drill the right hand, take rounds that leave you sore the next morning. You cut weight. You risk getting cut clean and changing your market value in a single round. All of this is happening within a career span that is closing faster than most people realize.
Crawford pressed on.
“They feel like they don’t care about that person’s family. They don’t care about that person’s, you know, relationship with them. They don’t go in there with their heart like, ‘Oh man, like you’re a good mate.’ They’re like, ‘Oh, sorry. It’s just business. Cut you.’ So when a fighter does the same thing that a promotional company does or a manager or anybody else, that’s all you’re disloyal, you this, you that. I’m like, make sense.”
Fighters understand something outsiders don’t. The earning years are short. You don’t get twenty prime years. You get a handful of good years where your reflexes are sharp, your legs are under you, and your name still draws.
Lose twice and the phone slows down. Get knocked out and your bargaining power shrinks. That’s the risk every time you put your feet up and let combos go.
From a fighter’s point of view, the equation is simple. If there is a greater guarantee while your body is still intact, you take it. The belts have yet to be won under the lights, work behind the jab, finish rounds strong. The promoter can move rosters. The fighter absorbs the blows.
The window closes quickly. Fighters know this better than anyone.
