By Eric Baldwin: Floyd Mayweather Jr. wonders why WBA Super World welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman (27-0, 22 KOs) is continually ducking a fight against #1 IBF, #3 WBC, #4 WBO Errol Spence Jr. (21-0, 18 KOs) after he offered the fight to Thurman for one of his belts in 2015.
Mayweather offered Thurman to fight Spence on the undercard of his final fight of his career against Andre Berto in September 2015, and Thurman turned the fight down. Thurman said that Mayweather should pay him $10 million out of his own pocket if he wanted him to fight Spence, because he felt that he hadn’t earned a fight against him at that point is pro career.
This was after Thurman had beaten Luis Collazo in July 2015. Thurman has fought only once since then in beating Shawn Porter last June.
Mayweather thinks that Thurman should be fighting Spence next instead of WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia (33-0, 19 KOs) on March 4 in New York. Mayweather sees Spence as the guy that Thurman should have to fight to prove himself in order to get the fight against Danny Garcia. Thurman would obviously disagree with Mayweather. He wants the bigger payday that a fight against Garcia would provide for him right now.
If something were to go wrong in fighting Spence, he wouldn’t get a big payday against Danny Garcia. Thurman has a really tough time as it was in beating Shawn Porter last July. If Thurman had to fight an arguably tougher fight against Spence, it’s very likely he’d lost to him. Thurman barely beat Porter by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 115-113, 115-113 and 115-113.
Here’s what Mayweather had to say to Fighthype.com about Thurman ducking the Spence fight:
“Terence Crawford can fight his [expletive] off,” said Mayweather. “So can Errol Spence. There’s only one problem. Nobody really knows fighters. I spoke on Errol Spence before the [Manny] Pacquiao fight. Do I think Keith Thurman and Danny Garcia should be fighting each other right now? No, I think Errol Spence should be fighting one of them first. I wonder why Keith Thurman keeps ducking Errol Spence. Everybody is ducking Errol Spence,” said Mayweather.
Thurman could wind up fighting Spence in 2017 if he gets his hands on the IBF title from champion Kell Brook, who appears to be on the verge of vacating his title rather than facing him. If Brook does fight Spence, he’s going to have a really tough time. Brook is coming off of a 5th round knockout loss to unbeaten middleweight knockout artist Gennady Golovkin last September.
Brook paid a heavy price in that loss, considering that he suffered a broken right eye socket. The injury is healed now, but there’s no indication yet whether it’ll hold up under the wear and tear of a fight, especially against a puncher like Spence.
Mayweather says he can understand Brook not wanting to take the fight against Spence right now due to the eye injury he suffered, and the punishment he absorbed against GGG. Mayweather thinks Brook should take an easy fight to get a tune-up for his next right rather than get inside the ring with a hungry lion like Spence.
Mayweather makes it sound so easy for Brook, but if he chooses not to fight Spence, he’ll be stripped of his IBF title. Brook has already said that he doesn’t want to vacate his belt, because he worked so hard to get it. If he changes his mind now and gives up his IBF title, boxing fans are going to say he ducked the Spence fight, which would be true. He would be ducking the fight. It would be a risky one for Brook to fight under any circumstances.
The Brook that fought Golovkin last September would have had his hands full with the nonstop pressure and the heavy power punches that Spence would be hitting him with all night long. There’s a very good chance that Spence would have broken Brook down in the same exact way that Golovkin did. Brook isn’t really a puncher, and he does not do well when getting hit hard. Spence could force Brook to run, and that wouldn’t work against him. Spence is too good at cutting off the ring.
It’s hard to deny that Thurman is ducking the Spence fight. When you see Thurman fighting the likes of Luis Collazo and Shawn Porter instead of Spence, then you can only conclude that he’s ducking the fight. When you hear Thurman asking for $10 million for the Spence fight, it tells you that he doesn’t want the fight. Who asks for that kind of money to fight unless you’re pricing yourself out on purpose to avoid a knockout loss.
When asked about Kell Brook potentially ducking Spence too, Mayweather said, “Kell Brook was just in a tough battle with Triple G. He needs a good opponent that’s not too tough, because he just came off his eye socket being messed up extremely bad. So I think he needs to take a little time off. He’s taking time off, but when he comes back to fight, he doesn’t need to be competing against a young hungry lion [Spence] so fast,” said Mayweather.
“It could be a good match-up against Keith Thurman,” said Mayweather about Spence back in June 2015. “I think that would be a championship fight. I think him and Keith Thurman should be for a title fight. He’s ready.”
Thurman said this in rejecting Mayweather’s offer for him to fight Spence in July 2015:
“That’s a game [for Mayweather to ask him to fight Spence on his September 12 undercard]. He’s playing games,” said Thurman. If he wants to offer anything, he can offer $10 million in his bank account if he wants to offer anything. He wants to make a good fight happen, throw some dollar bills. He [Spence] needs to earn his shot. Have I not earned that respect in the welterweight division? Did I not climb up the ladder step by step, fighting whoever they put in front of me, fighting all the ex-world champions? How many ex-World champions has he [Spence] fought?”
