Terence Crawford purposely redirected every question about Errol Spence back to Amir Khan during his media workout earlier in the week.
The very next day, the WBO welterweight champion addressed Spence without mentioning his name, essentially saying that he can’t force the IBF champion to fight him.
Join DAZN and watch more than 100 fight nights a year
But after destroying Khan via a sixth-round TKO early Sunday morning after Khan’s corner claimed he couldn’t continue after suffering an accidental low blow, Crawford made sure to call Spence out publicly.
“The fight I want next is Errol Spence,” Crawford said in the ring after improving to 35-0 with 26 KOs. “Whenever he is ready, he can come and get it.”
Spence tweeted in response:
I am my next fight lol https://t.co/awnubMk6MD
— Errol Spence (@ErrolSpenceJr) April 21, 2019
But “Bud” pressed Spence even further during the post-fight press conference.
“Everybody know I want the Spence fight,” Crawford told the media gathered in front of him. “That’s the fight that everybody wants, that’s the fight that I want to prove I’m the best welterweight in the division.”
There’s no coincidence that one of the most cerebral boxers in the ring waited until after eviscerating Khan to mash the dash on making the Spence fight happen. Crawford needs Spence to cement his fighting legacy and he knows it. And the timing of landing the fight is getting more and more urgent by the day.
As Sporting News’ Andreas Hale forecasted earlier in the week, Crawford didn’t gain anything from defeating Khan. (Furthermore, Crawford’s win was anticlimactic, but let’s keep it funky … “Bud” was thoroughly beating Khan for five rounds and would have probably knocked him out even if the low-blow stoppage never happened). The way Crawford won put a sour taste in his mouth and it’s a feeling that could only be changed with a convincing victory over Spence.
He’s tired of victories that don’t exactly move the needle forward for him and his career like this latest victory did and a win over fellow Top Rank fighter Egidijus Kavaliauskas would probably do for him as well. That’s why Crawford is so hell-bent on landing the Spence fight as soon as possible.
Saying it is one thing, while cementing it is a whole other thing due to Crawford being with Top Rank, which has a partnership with ESPN, and Spence fighting under the Premier Boxing Champions banner, which has a partnership with FOX. Then, the frigid relationship between Top Rank promoter Bob Arum and the head of PBC, Al Haymon, further complicate things.
“Unfortunately, I don’t know what’s going on,” Crawford said, speaking toward the business end of Top Rank and PBC and making the Spence fight happen. “I can only fight who they put in front of me and that’s what I’m gonna continue to do and that’s what’s gonna be my main focus is the fighter in front of me. Until then, that’s where we’re at.”
That much is a sad reality that boxers themselves, fans and critics alike have been forced to accept over the years in an industry where marquee fights often either happen years too late — think Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao — or don’t happen at all.
Hopefully, neither result is the trajectory for Crawford-Spence, which would not only decide the best welterweight, but also the pound-for-pound best and the best boxer of his generation.
Earlier in the week, Arum compared Crawford to Sugar Ray Leonard. Well, Leonard had the likes of Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran to cement his fighting legacy. And he fought and beat them all. Crawford has Spence (25-0, 21 KOs) and Keith Thurman (29-0, 22 KOs) as fellow undefeated welterweight champions, but both are on the other side of the street, as they’re represented by PBC.
Crawford needs Spence for his fighting legacy more than Spence needs Crawford for his. In fact, Spence can do without the fight altogether, considering he has the likes of Thurman, Shawn Porter, Danny Garcia and Manny Pacquiao to scrap with to boost his name to Hall of Fame status.
Perhaps if Crawford and Spence doesn’t pan out, Top Rank and “Bud” can try to make a fight with Garcia happen. Garcia scored a seventh-round KO over Adrian Granados on the same night Crawford defeated Khan, meaning Crawford and Garcia are on the exact same time schedule. And for what it’s worth, Garcia did knock out Khan too and at least on paper would present Crawford’s toughest test to date, as a slick, clean, precision puncher with power.
Garcia’s name was evoked during the post-fight press conference to which Crawford essentially dismissed due to the frosty relationship between PBC and Top Rank. Furthermore, Crawford eyes Spence as the best, with a convincing victory in a title-unification bout as a vehicle to justify his name to undeniable greatness in the Sweet Science.
Join DAZN and watch more than 100 fight nights a year
And if the fight does indeed happen, Crawford has a caveat to hush any early talk about the bigger man (Spence) beating up on the smaller man (“Bud”).
“That’s the whole story about the welterweight division — a lot of people look at my size and they say, ‘Oh, well, he’s too little, I’m going to be bigger than him, I’m gonna be stronger than him,’ but if you look at my welterweight reign, I done stopped every welterweight that I’ve gotten in the ring with — I was stronger than,” Crawford said. “So, a lot of people looking at my size and they’ll be like, ‘Ah man, he’s little’ … until they get in the ring with me.”
If the fight gets made — and it’s a big if — let’s see what Spence has to say about it.
In the meantime, expect Crawford to not let up on Spence.
