By Dan Ambrose: Unbeaten #8 WBA welterweight contender Errol Spence (17-0, 14 KOs) wants a big name for his next fight on the undercard of Floyd Mayweather Jr’s next fight on September 12th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Spence and trainer Derrick James want Amir Khan, Keith Thurman or Shawn Porter for the September card, and they believe that one of Mayweather’s welterweight titles will be on the line for the fight.
Mayweather said last month after Spence’s 3rd round knockout win over Phil Lo Greco (26-2, 14 KOs) on the Adrien Broner vs. Porter fight card on June 20th, that he’d like to see Spence battle it out against Porter or Thurman on September 12th for one of is welterweight world titles that he’d be giving up for them to fight over.
As of yet, Thurman and Porter haven’t said that they would like to face the dangerous Spence, so that leaves only Amir Khan. Of course, if there was some big money on the line for them to face Spence, it could change their minds.
“We are ready for any one of those guys [Khan, Thurman or Porter]. I know Shawn Porter and I like him,” James said to Fighthype.com. “I think it will be an interesting fight for any one of those guys. It’s obvious that Floyd wants Errol to be a champ, whether it’s against one of those guys or not. I’m happy with September I think Shawn Porter will be a guy that pushes him.”
Mayweather sees Spence as the future of the welterweight division. The fact that Thurman wants no part of him tells you how good Spence is.
It would be great to see Spence fight one of those aforementioned fighters. Spence needs to be pushed because he’s beating everyone so easily now, and he needs to be fighting the A-level guys, or at least the guys that are ranked at the A-level. We’re still not sure how good guys like Thurman and Khan are, because they’ve looked flawed in many of their fights. By fighting Spence, we’d finally know how good Thurman and Khan are.
Porter would be a good opponent for Spence because he would be looking to fight him on the inside, where Spence is very dangerous. If Spence can beat a brawler like Porter, it would be a huge shot in the arm for his career.
It’s very likely that Spence will have to be content with fighting someone else on Mayweather’s September 12th fight card rather than getting Khan, Thurman or Porter. Those guys aren’t likely to accept a fight against a guy ranked only No.8 by the WBA. The fallback to getting beaten by Spence would be a big blow for their careers, and that’s why I don’t see them accepting a fight against him. He’s too dangerous.
Spence needs a good contender to face, even if it has to be someone from the junior middleweight division that comes down in weight to face him. He had been hoping to fight Roberto Garcia for the June 20th fight, but he was overweight in the week leading up to the fight and this is why they replaced him with Lo Greco, another junior middleweight. There are some good 154lbers if Spence can’t get a welterweight to step up to the place to take the fight
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