By Jeff Aranow: IBF welterweight champion Errol ‘The Truth’ Spence Jr. (23-0, 20 KOs) says he wants to fight the winner of the Danny Garcia vs. ‘Showtime’ Shawn Porter fight after he gets through with his IBF mandatory challenger Carlos Ocampo (22-0, 13 KOs) on June 16.
Garcia and Porter were ordered by the World Boxing Council to fight for the vacant WBC welterweight title that was recently vacated by Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman. There still isn’t a date or a venue for when and where the Porter vs. Garcia fight will take place if at all.
It’s still unclear whether Danny Garcia (34-1, 20 KOs) and his dad/trainer Angel Garcia are going to agree to fight Porter (28-2-1, 17 KOs), because that’s a tough fight for him, and they can get a fight with Thurman without having to win the vacant WBC title.
I’m fighting my MANDATORY opponent ordered by the IBF.. hopefully me & the winner out of @ShowtimeShawnP & @DannySwift can unify right after ‼️ y’all just want everything now lol
— Errol Spence (@ErrolSpenceJr) May 1, 2018
It would just be good to see Spence stay active and fight three times per year instead of just once like we saw in the past year. Ideally, it would be great if the Porter vs. Garcia winner wanted to fight Spence, but that’s just not realistic. When Garcia fights, he tends to face guys where he’s the favorite most of the time. Look at his last fight. Instead of Garcia facing a quality fighter, he Brandon Rios.
Porter, 30, might be tempted to fight Spence if/when he captures the WBC 147lb. title, but I tend to think he won’t do it right away. Porter wants to fight Thurman again and he would also be looking to fight Garcia if he doesn’t fight him for the vacant WBC title. If Porter does beat Garcia to capture the WBC belt, then he would likely prefer to fight him again rather than a dangerous guy like Spence. That fight would probably be the last resort for Porter.
As for Danny Garcia, I don’t think he’ll ever agree to fight Spence. If you look at the fights that Garcia has had during his career, it’s highly unlikely he’ll agree to fight Spence unless he becomes the next Floyd Mayweather in terms of pay-per-view. Garcia would only be taking the fight with Spence due to the money and not because he thinks he’ll win.
Spence will be making his first defense of his IBF title against #1 IBF Ocampo on June 16 at The Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas. This is expected to be an easy title defense for Spence. There are only a small handful of good welterweights in the division for Spence to fight. That’s why it pays off for fighters to win one of the belts, because if they’re halfway decent fighters like Thurman, they can milk the title by taking on weak opposition to hold onto the belt as long as possible before they’re eventually forced to fight someone good.