By Scott Gilfoid: Errol Spence Jr. will be doing battle with the forever young 41-year-old Leonard Bundu in eight days from now in their IBF welterweight eliminator bout on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC from the Ford Amphitheater, in Coney Island, New York.
The fans are going to be in for a real treat to see the talented 5’9 ½” Spence (20-0, 17 KOs) show off his stuff in this battle. It’s going to be really interesting fight from start to finish, believe me.
Bundu will be a good measuring stick to determine just how good Spence is. Keith “One Time” Thurman had all he could handle from his fight against Bundu two years ago in 2014, and he had decided he didn’t want to stand and trade with the Italian based fighter. Thurman was running from the 2nd round on and stinking up the joint in that fight. I mean, Thurman won the fight against Bundu, but he was doing some awful running. Spence won’t do that. He’ll wade in like a tsunami and force Bundu into a battle to the finish.
The importance of this fight is significant for the 26-year-old Spence because if he wins the contest, he’ll become the mandatory challenger to IBF belt holder Kell “Special K” Brook, and that’s going to put a lot of pressure on the British fighter whether he should give up his IBF belt or face the music and take his lumps like a good soldier.
Brook has been bellyaching about wanting to get a big stadium worthy fight in the welterweight division. Well, here it is staring him straight in the face. If Spence beats Bundu (33-1-2, 12 KOs) on August 21, it will give Brook his first chance for an important fight in the 147 division. Obviously the timing isn’t so great for Brook. He’ll be coming off of a tough fight against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin from their fight on September 10, and he might still broke up physically and/or mentally from that fight when he gets into the ring with Spence for his mandatory title defense. But it was Brook that wanted to be champion, so he’s got to realize that if you want to be champions, then you’re going to have to face talents like Spence.
No shortcuts to where I want to be… #MANDOWN #SpenceBundu #August21 #PBConNBC #MyTime #worldtitlechase pic.twitter.com/MRi4cXZbt5
— Errol Spence (@ErrolSpenceJr) August 10, 2016
Bundu is a tremendous body puncher with excellent hand speed and great amateur experience. Like Spence, Bundu is a former Olympian, so he’s not someone that is unqualified for this fight. Bundu’s problem is he hasn’t been fighting high quality opposition since his loss to Thurman two years ago. Spence hasn’t been fighting great opposition either, but at least his last fight was against Chris Algieri. In Bundu’s last two fights, he’s beaten Jussi Koivula and Pablo Munguia in his last two fights. Those are not well known fighters or top level guys. Bundu could be out of his league when he gets inside the ring with Spence. You don’t go from facing the likes of Koivula and Munguia to facing a talent like Spence. That’s a recipe for pure disaster.