By Danny Ech: It is now the month of October 2017 and we are approaching the end of the year and of course we all hope that boxing ends on a high note. This has been a pretty good fight year for the sport with some high points and some grounders.
This year we finally watched Gennady Golovkin vs. Saul Canelo Alvarez, Keith Thurman vs. Danny Garcia, Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor, Danny Jacobs vs. Golovkin and Errol Spence Jr. vs. Kell Brook. All those past fights mentioned were like roller coaster rides but entertaining none the less depending on your own personal tastes in entertainment.
As of late the boxing public was on the verge of witnessing a very good heavyweight fight between the “Bronze Bomber” himself Deontay Wilder vs Luis “King Kong” Ortiz. This particular fight gained a lot of attention because both men were feared in the Heavyweight division and the winner could potentially secure a fight with the U.K. Champion Anthony Joshua. We all know now that as time went on the fight was suddenly cancelled because Luis Ortiz failed a drug test that two of the sanctioning bodies mandate now in which a number of boxing athletes have failed since its inception into the sport of boxing.
The coming year of 2018 was supposed to be a year of promise because the WBC and WBA Unified Champion Keith “One Time” Thurman finally returned to the United States after a long layoff that included an elbow injury and a wedding. The return of Thurman was significant because the new most feared and most ducked Welterweight Errol “The Truth” Spence was waiting in the wings for Thurman to touch down on American soil. As the story goes Thurman has no desire what so ever to face Spence in his next fight or even the fight after maybe not until 2019 and because of his decision Spence cannot get what he wants which is a shot at the two belts Thurman holds (WBC, WBA).
In a strange onslaught of anger to this decision from Keith Thurman multiple YouTube Channels went on the offensive and all in which seem to be a collaborative effort to call this Unified Champion a “Coward” after building a 20yr career going toe to toe in the ring for a living is amazing to me. At this point with the level of anger poured out on this fight made me look further into Errol Spence. Let me say first that I believe Errol Spence is a very exceptional fighter that has the potential to take over the sport of boxing at least in the Welterweight division. The question I have is this: if Errol Spence is equally angry at the fact that Thurman has decided to duck him conveniently after an elbow injury why is he not fighting for the WBC and WBA? I pose this question because if Errol Spence adamantly wanted the Thurman fight like he and his fans say than he can avoid all of Thurman’s ducking and simply become the “Mandatory” challenger on both sides of the coin via the WBA and the WBC sanctioning bodies. Now what is interesting is Spence simply let go of this opportunity with his next fight against Lamont Peterson because Peterson was in fact the “mandatory” challenger to none other than Keith “One Time” Thurman and Spence have signed to fight him and Peterson all of a sudden dropped that belt and his mandatory position and ducked Thurman. This situation raises red flags because the WBA and WBC have clean boxing programs that Spence still will not sign up for even after the WBC dropped him from their ranking, and the IBF where Spence holds his title does not have a program. At the end of the day if Errol Spence really wanted to fight Thurman he can attain two mandatory positions in which he would automatically force Thurman to fight him so why hasn’t he signed up and why is NO ONE in You Tube land asking him?