By Dan Ambrose: Floyd Mayweather Jr. says he’s ready to vacate his 147 pound titles to let #8 WBA welterweight contender Errol Spence (17-0, 14 KOs) to fight for them against Keith Thurman or Shawn Porter on his next undercard on September 12th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mayweather is waiting on the word from one of those two fighters to see if they’re willing to face the unbeaten Spence for the titles.
What’s interesting here is how Mayweather is giving the 25-year-old Spence the kind of support that he was previously giving to Adrien Broner. It looks like Mayweather is circling his wagons around Spence and banking on him being the future of the welterweight division. Broner has clearly failed in trying to become the guy to step into Mayweather’s shoes to carry the baton for him after he retires.
Now it could be Spence as the guy that takes over for Mayweather as the next big star in boxing. If Spence can defeat the likes of Thurman and Porter, then there really won’t be anyone out there that can touch him. Amir Khan would seem unlikely to take the kinds of heavy punches that Spence is capable of landing, and Garcia has already been exposed by Mauricio Herrera and Lamont Peterson as not being the real deal. Garcia is still unbeaten officially, but in the minds of a lot of boxing fans, he has two losses now.
“I’m ready to relinquish my belts. I think two good match-ups for him [Errol Spence] is Shawn Porter in September or Keith Thurman,” Mayweather said to Fighthype. “I haven’t relinquished my belts yet, but once those guys say they’ll take the fight with Errol Spence, then guess what? We’re going to make it happen. Right now, he’s [Spence] making a lot of noise. Keith Thurman, if you want it, you can get it. He’s [Spence] fighting on my undercard in September and on pay-per-view. If one of those guys want to step up and face him for one of my belts. If not, he’ll fight another opponent. But I’m going to make sure he’s [Spence] going to fight for that title,” Mayweather said.
There it is. Mayweather has challenged both Thurman and Porter to step up and take a dangerous fight against Spence. Porter has already said no to the fight, and it’s unclear what Thurman will do. He’s said nothing at all, which is unusual for Thurman. When his name is mentioned, he normally speaks up immediately, but in this case Thurman has been strangely quiet.
You can read that any way you want to, but it doesn’t look like Thurman is too eager to fight the hard hitting Spence. It would be a lot tougher fight for Thurman than the guys that he’s been fighting. Thurman has only faced one puncher during his career in beating the 5’7” Diego Chaves in 2013, and that guy is a lot smaller than the 5’9 ½” Spence. Chaves staggered Thurman in that fight. It would be a dangerous fight for Thurman to take on a guy like Spence.
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