Dibella: Mayweather isn’t coming out of retirement to fight Spence

By Boxing News - 04/17/2016 - Comments

1-160414_Fights_3976By Dan Ambrose: Promoter Lou Dibella says his fighter Errol Spence Jr. (20-0, 17 KOs) would beat Manny Pacquiao if that fight was to happen right now. Dibella also thinks that Floyd Mayweather Jr. won’t come out of retirement to face Spence. Dibella is pretty excited about Spence because of his spectacular 5th round knockout win over former world champion Chris Algieri (21-3, 8 KOs) in front of a large crowd of 7.628 fans last Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Spence knocked Algieri down twice and showed that he has the kind of punching power that would give anyone in the 147lb huge problems. Spence looked good enough to give guys from the middleweight division problems like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.

“I tell you what, Mayweather ain’t coming out of retirement to fight him. Pacquiao? I’d bet my house right now he beats Pacquiao,” said Dibella via ESPN.com.

Mayweather definitely won’t be coming out of retirement for a difficult fight against Spence. Mayweather has been quite vocal about wanting to sign him to his own Mayweather Promotions company in the future. Spence sparred Mayweather four years ago and gave him all kinds of problems. Mayweather came away from the experience very impressed with the boxing skills and punching power of Spence.

Spence would give Mayweather problems because he doesn’t focus on throwing a lot of head shots. Mayweather is good at avoiding head shots, but he’s less skilled at blocking body shots and he has problems against fighters that come in like large tsunamis. We saw how Marcos Maidana gave Mayweather a lot of problems in their two fights. If Maidana had focused more on throwing body shots in the second fight, he would have given Mayweather more problems.

“I don’t think Kell Brook will want a piece of him, honestly,” said Dibella. “I was a little shocked tonight. I thought he [Spence] was going to win. Chris has never gotten steam rolled. No one has ever run through him like that, ever. Is there anyone in this room who thinks there would be anyone as a prohibitive favorite over him? Anyone? That’s pretty amazing. I remember when he came out of the Olympics, and Al [Haymon] signed all those Olympians. I called Al and said I don’t think much of the Olympians, but one kid [Spence] is pretty amazing. I thought that when he was an amateur, but the progression he’s made as a pro and the poise. We also heard him say he’s not afraid of anybody. Who are you going to put in front of him who you think he can’t beat. This man has the potential to beat anyone in the world today. Anyone. Thurman-Porter, which will be taking place in this building on June 25, I’m sure he’s [Spence] going to be sitting ringside. The winner of that fight is going to have to look down in the crowd and see him,” said Dibella.

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Spence did a great job of smothering Algieri’s offense by staying on top of him and not letting him use his reach to land shots from the outside. Spence stayed near Algieri the entire five rounds of the fight, and landed a lot of hard body shots. Algieri landed some shots of his own but he didn’t have the space to get any leverage on his punches the way he needed to for him to get any power.

“Not taking anything away from him. He’s a hungry, young lion, and he’ll be a great champion one day,” Algieri said to espn.com “He brought some good stuff tonight. He stayed composed, and that was a big part of it. I know I caught him with some big shots and shots he definitely felt, but he was composed and caught me with some shots when I was between strategies.”

Algieri landed some shots, but Spence walked through them in his single-minded determination to land his big punches to the body and head of the 32-year-old.

Dibella and Al Haymon are going to need to really search hard to try to find someone good to match Spence up against for his next fight this year. They’re not going to get IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook to take that fight. That’s not going to happen. Brook won’t face Spence until he absolutely has to take that fight, and even then it’s possible he’ll give up his IBF title rather than face him.

Brook is looking to make big money now that he’s nearing his 30s. Spence could get in the way of Brook’s chance to make big money by beating him. Brook and his promoter Eddie Hearn likely won’t let Spence mess up their revenue stream, so you can expect Brook to vacate his IBF title at some point.