By Victor Salazar
New York, NY - Promise and hype have surrounded the career of unbeaten welterweight prospect Errol Spence Jr. (19-0, 16KOs).
Many feel the 26-year-old is the best of the 2012 United States Olympic class and one of the best prospects in the world. But the one knock on him so far is that he has not fought anyone of note. That factor will change in April, when he takes on former world champion Chris Algieri (21-2, 8KOs) in a step up Spence has longed for.
“It’s a fight I been asking for a while,” Spence told BoxingScene.com. “He’s a former champion and has a great name. It’d be good to see if I can win a one sided fight and dominate him.”
Many have seen improvements in Algieri’s offensive game with the addition of trainer John David Jackson. Spence feel Algieri is a really good fighter but doesn’t know if Algieri packs a punch.
“I seen his last two performance on the undercard of Quillin-Jacobs and the Amir Khan fight,” Spence said. “He’s more aggressive and he’s starting to come forward a little bit. He throws more punches. My assessment on him is that he’s good. I don’t know if he can punch or not, still to be seen on April 16th.”
Spence feels like there needs to be more 50-50 fights like his fight with Algieri and Keith Thurman-Shawn Porter.
“Welterweight is tough, a packed loaded division with young guys,” explained Spence. “We need to make this fights happen. It’s a packed division. I’m looking to get in there with a lot of them guys in these 50-50 type fights.
Thurman, who holds the WBA's welterweight crown, had been in the media talking about a fight with Spence, saying that the unbeaten boxer needed to prove himself. Thurman also threw stones at the endorsement given to Spence by Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
Spence, however, is not paying no attention to the smack talk.
“I don’t pay attention to it. It’s part of the game. That’s what Keith Thurman does. He likes to talk. He’s got to worry about Shawn Porter and I got to worry about Chris Algieri.”
