By Steve Kim

On September 8th from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, former world champions Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia will duke it out for the vacant WBC welterweight title.

The belt became vacant after Keith Thurman, inactive for well over a year, dropped the title due to injury.

So the question is will the winner of this bout between Garcia and Porter face IBF welterweight titlist, Errol Spence (24-0, 21 KOs), next?

Stephen Espinoza, the head of Showtime Sports, said over the weekend to BoxingScene.com- "I'm expecting that to be a tough fight. The thing is know there's a lot of pressure from the fans to say, 'Look, keep these guys active.' Well, when you get a (Keith) Thurman-Garcia or a Thurman-Porter, those are brutal fights.

"I don't think these guys, unless something unexpected happens, you'll see them or shouldn't see those guys in the ring before the end of the year. You need a full three, four months because I'm expecting that to be a war for 12 rounds."

Truth of the matter is that for Spence, there may not be that many viable options on the Premier Boxing Champions side of the street for the time being.

''Keith (Thurman)... everybody has been anxious, he's finally back in the gym. We've all seen the footage by now," said Espinoza, of the current WBA belt-holder who has not fought since defeating Danny Garcia in March of 2017.

"The real question is really what Errol does in the meantime? I think that's one of the reasons why the Errol and Mikey (Garcia) talk has caught on because Mikey's the one guy who could go to Errol relatively quickly. He's probably ready for an Errol Spence fight before Thurman is and the winner of Garcia-Porter is."

Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.