By Allan Fox: Errol Spence Jr. and Leonard Bundu will be battling next Sunday on August 21 in an IBF welterweight title eliminator bout. Spence (20-0, 17 KOs) is taking the fight very seriously despite being the favorite to win. He doesn’t want to overlook the 41-year-old Bundu, because he realizes that he can lose his standing in the boxing world if he’s made to struggle to win.
It’s not fair for Spence because Bundu (33-1-2, 12 KOs) is a very good fighter, and incredibly crafty. For Spence to be expected to blow Bundu out of the water in this fight, it puts him in a situation where he’s going to need to fight like a welterweight version of Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. This means that Spence will need to put a tremendous amount of pressure on Bundu if he wants to get him out of there next Sunday.
Spence vs. Bundu will be televised by Premier Boxing Champions on NBC on August 21. This is one of their rare Sunday fights. It’s going to be interesting to see what the ratings end up being for the Spence-Bundu fight with it taking place on a Sunday rather than a Friday or Saturday night, which are the traditional days where fights take place. It might bring in good ratings with it being shown on HBC though, because that’s a non-premium channel and it won’t require that boxing fans pay extra to see it like with Showtime or HBO.
Spence destroyed Chris Algieri in five rounds in his last fight in April. Algier was supposed to give Spence a real test, but he turned out to be too weak for him. In Spence’s recent wins before that fight, he defeated Alejandro Barrera in five rounds last November, Chris Van Heerden in eight rounds last year in September and Phil Lo Greco in three rounds last year in June. Spence is beating good fighters and making it look easy. We could see the same thing when he gets inside the ring with Bundu.
What makes Bundu such a good test for Spence is the problems he gave Keith Thurman in their fight in 2014. Bundu was able to land some big shots on Thurman on the inside early in the fight, and that caused Thurman to get on his bike and use movement for the rest of the way. Thurman didn’t seem willing to out his chin on the line to go for a knockout due to the risk involved in fighting that way.
The IBF welterweight champion is Kell Brook, but he’s fighting IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin next on September 10 next month. We do not know if Brook will be coming back down to 147. His promoter Eddie Hearn has said that Brook will be coming back down to defend his IBF title, but that’s easier said than done. If Brook has to lose a lot of weight to get back down to welterweight, he might not be as effective as he was before.
When you throw your body off by gaining a bunch of weight, it creates a new set point, and it’s hard to go back to where you were before without drastic measures. If Brook is weakened by going back down to welterweight, then he’s going to be in a lot of trouble against Spence. It’s not a good match-up for Brook anyway, but when you factor in all the weight that he’s going to need to take off to get back down, it’s going to be hard.