Terence Crawford feels good about his new and mysterious financial backer, given how he has already secured half his purse without even stepping inside the ring.

The WBO welterweight titlist from Omaha, Nebraska, will defend his strap in front of his hometown fans on Dec. 10 against England-based Russian contender David Avanesyan. The fight will be available for viewing on a pay-per-view platform called BLK Prime, a newcomer to boxing. The company reportedly enticed Crawford with a $10 million purse for one fight.

In a recent interview with Brian Custer on The Last Stand Podcast, Crawford tried to dispel any concern that BLK Prime would not pony up the necessary funds to see him make the sixth defense of his WBO 147-pound title. Asked if he was indeed making $10 million, Crawford smiled and nodded.

“Gotta get the money,” Crawford said. “C’mon. Gotta get the money.”

Boxing, a sport with essentially no barrier to entry, has seen its share of sketchy insurgents try to shake up the sport only to fall flat on their face when it comes time to pay fighters.

Not so with BLK Prime, Crawford said. The Nebraskan insisted that he has no qualms about BLK Prime’s ability to live up to their contract because, he said, he has already received half his purse. Crawford said he will receive the balance a week before the fight. In addition to Crawford, BLK Prime now boasts multi-division champion Adrien Broner as a signee.

“Well, me personally, I don’t know what Broner’s deal’s structure is like, but I already got half of my money already,” Crawford told Custer. “And I’mma get the other half before I even step in the ring, like a week before or so. That way I don’t have to worry about if they have the money or they don’t or have to go through all those hoops on getting paid. My money is already secured.”

When Crawford announced his fight with Avanesyan last month many in the sport regarded it as a letdown, as it appeared that he was headed toward an undisputed welterweight championship with WBA, WBC, IBF champion Errol Spence. But those negotiations unraveled.

Crawford said he had been in touch with BLK Prime during his negotiations with Spence’s advisor, Al Haymon of Premier Boxing Champions, but that it was not until the fight with Spence was officially dead in the water that he reached out to the nascent company to make a deal.

“Well, you always got to have a backup plan,” Crawford said. “Basically I kept them in the loop and let them know like, I wasn’t doing no business with them and the Spence fight was my main priority and that was the fight I was mainly focused on and they understood that. They kept in touch and you know let me know if there was any opportunity for them to host a Terence Crawford fight they was all up for it.

“Once the Spence fight fell through and we wasn’t going to fight in November and they (PBC) were going to push it all the way to next year, then at that particular time I had to do what I had to do.”