By Dan Ambrose: If Floyd Mayweather Jr. wants to get former IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (26-1-1, 16 KOs) to fight unbeaten #8 WBA 147lb contender Errol Spence (17-0, 14 KOs) on his next undercard for one of his world titles on September 12th, then Mayweather is going to have to put up some money, says Porter’s father/trainer Kenny Porter.
He says Porter won’t face Spence, of whoever Mayweather wants him to fight, unless he’s paid. However, Kenny doubts Mayweather will do this because it would mean that he’d be overpaying Spence, and he thinks that setup a situation where the other young fighters would want to be overpaid as well for their fights with Mayweather Promotions.
“I expect him (Mayweather) to say no to us every time our name gets mentioned – and that’s okay. But if he wants us to fight some of these other guys he’s named on the undercard (Errol Spence Jr), then he’s gonna have to put some money on the table,” Kenny said to Thaboxingvoice.
The fight that Porter and Kenny both want is against Mayweather on September 12th, and they’re not going to keep talking about it. But it doesn’t appear that Mayweather is seriously considering Porter for his next fight, so it doesn’t matter how much they talk about it. Mayweather likely won’t bother with Porter. Like Keith Thurman, Mayweather wants Porter to face Spence on his next undercard. It’s unclear how much money Porter would be looking to face Spence. It’s anyone’s guess what he’d ask for.
Thurman jokingly said he wants $10 million to fight Spence on Mayweather’s September 12th undercard. He says he wants to be paid well if he faces Spence on that card. While Thurman clearly wasn’t serious about wanting that much money for the Spence fight, he obviously would want a good payday for that fight, even though it wouldn’t be a fight that interest the casual boxing much. Spence doesn’t have a big name yet, and even Thurman is someone who many casual fans in the United States aren’t familiar with as of yet. It takes a while for fans to learn who these fighters are, and Thurman hasn’t been around long enough and been involved with enough big fights for him to be a big drawing card.
“We [Porter] wouldn’t fight that fight [against Spence] and TBE [Mayweather] wouldn’t make that fight, because you’re not going to be overpaying a young fighter,” Kenny said about Porter fighting Spence on Mayweather’s September 12th undercard. “That means the next young guy that comes along, they got to overpay him too. They’re not going to overpay someone who’s not at that pay status.”
Spence is a little different from the average guy that comes along though. He could wind up as the best welterweight in the division once Mayweather retires, so it would make sense for him to be overpaid initially if it helps push Spence to the top quicker so that he can make money all the more faster. When you have a fighter that you want to start bringing cash quickly, you have to put him in with a top guy right off the bat rather than waiting around years before you make your move. If Spence can take Porter’s scalp, he’ll be right there at the top of the division ready to challenge guys like Keith Thurman, Kell Brook, Amir Khan, Adrien Broner and Marcos Maidana for supremacy in the welterweight division. If Mayweather doesn’t pay the money for a Spence-Porter or Spence-Thurman fight, it could take Spence years to get to the top, because he’s not going to get the same respect and the same attention by beating the obscure fighters in the division.
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