Errol Spence couldn’t be any clearer in his desire for a welterweight superfight with Terence Crawford.
A matchup between the pair of unbeaten titlists and pound-for-pound entrants remains high on the wish list of most boxing fans and among the most common matchups mentioned by boxers as the one big fight they’d like to see come to fruition. By his own admission, it’s not the next fight in queue for the 30-year old southpaw from Desoto, Texas, but one that is definitely on his radar.
“It’s big, it just has to make sense,” Spence (26-0, 21KOs) insisted during a recent interview on the Instagram Live channel of Premier Boxing Champions (PBC), hosted by Ray Flores. “Just like [Manny] Pacquiao and Floyd [Mayweather]. It just has to make sense. All the money in the pot and everyone gets their fair share. As long as all that happens, there’s no reason why we can’t fight.”
The two have circled one another ever since Crawford officially arrived at welterweight, stopping then-unbeaten titlist Jeff Horn in the 9th round of their June 2018 title fight. The bout came one week prior to Spence’s second title defense, blasting out mandatory challenger Carlos Ocampo in one round atop a card at The Ford Center at The Star just outside his hometown in Frisco, Texas.
Despite fighting on back-to-back weekends, their schedules haven’t quite aligned since then. The closest they’ve come to an actual encounter was a spirited conversation backstage at Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City, where both were on hand in attendance for Maurice Hooker’s 140-pound title defending knockout of Alex Saucedo in November 2018.
Their careers have since ventured on very different paths. Spence fought in back-to-back Fox Sports Pay-Per-View headliners in 2019, defeating Mikey Garcia and Shawn Porter, the latter bout netting him a second welterweight title. Crawford scored stoppage wins of Amir Khan on ESPN PPV and Egidijus Kavaliauskas on ESPN’s linear network to close out the year.
As 2019 transitioned in 2020, demand has increased for a pound-for-pound showdown between the elite welterweights. However, Spence is more likely to next defend versus mandatory challenger Danny Garcia, while Crawford is being rumored for a voluntary defense versus former champ Kell Brook—whom Spence stopped in the 11th round of their May 2017 thriller to win his first title.
While fans will see it as a drawn-out marination process, the boxers involved see it as an opportunity to build the pot to ensure that all parties involved get their fair share for what would serve as the biggest fight of their respective careers.
“It’s the simple truth, we gonna get in there and try to kill each other,” Spence pointed out of being properly compensated for such an event. “As long as the money is in the pot and it make sense, the fight is definitely gonna happen. I talked to Al [Haymon, Spence’s adviser] about it and he said the same thing.
“Hopefully it can happen next year. A lot of his fans are saying I’m ducking him. I FaceTime’d Terence Crawford a couple of months ago and we talked about the fight. It’s definitely gonna happen.”
Despite their direct interaction, there’s no friendship to speak of to prevent such a fight from coming to fruition. Simply, two world class athletes respecting the other’s talents.
“It’s more of a mutual respect,” admits Spence. “I feel like Terence Crawford is real with himself. I feel like a lot of guys aren’t real with themselves. I feel like (former unified welterweight titlist) Keith Thurman is just fake. Then you got Shawn Porter, who likes to talk out the side of his mouth.
“With guys like [eight division and reigning welterweight titlist Manny] Pacquiao, guys like Terence Crawford, I feel like there’s just a mutual respect between us.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox